eParty.info – Party Guide

Running a wine tasting party can be brilliant fun, a great way to socialise with friends and a good excuse to try a collection of wines. In this post I’m going to point out some of the different categories that you can split wine into for tasting. Though just buying a random collection of wines from the supermarket may well do, by following one of the structures below might help give your wine tasting party a little bit more structure. These categories include:

Wine with bread

Vertical Wine Tasting: This is when you use a collection of the same wine, just from different vintages (years of manufacture). This means that you taste a number of bottles of the same wine, with the only change being the year that it was bottled. This means that guests can taste the difference between the years. Though this may not sound that exciting, there are great differences between the different vintages, such as the weather that has effected the grapes and it allows people to try and distinguish the differences, both subtle and vivid changes

Horizontal Wine Tasting: Compared with vertical wine tasting, this focuses on one year and one type of wine, but from many different producers. You can also combine vertical with horizontal tasting. This could be done by having the one wine from the different years, and then from one of the chosen years have tastings of other wines from different vineyards. The horizontal wines to taste can come from different regions, counties and so on – why limit yourself.

Wine with Cheese: This is a little bit different, as it is about trying to find wine and cheese pairings. It is said that by having certain cheeses with certain wines you can improve the wine’s flavour. This can be a great way of improving cheaper bottles of wine and a good excuse to indulge on some cheese as well as wine!

Wine with Chocolate: Maybe a little less obvious than tasting wine with cheese, but this could be a lovely way to try out some sweeter wines. You should try and pair chocolates with wines as sweet (preferably a little sweeter) as the chocolate and lighter chocolates with lighter wine (and wines which are more full bodied with more intense chocolate). This sort of tasting could be lovely at the end of a meal. Have your chocolates with some (more?) wine, rather than coffee or tea.

New World Vs Old World: This is when you compare wines produced in the new world (North America, Australia…) and compare them against the old world (France, Germany and so on).

Colour Varieties: This is where you compare a collection of different varieties of colour of wine (red/white). You taste the different varieties available, such as for red wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz and so on. This helps show how wine is more than just a colour, there are so many more things that affect taste.

Price Tastes: Can you really tell the difference between a £3 bottle of wine to a £30 bottle? Buy wines of similar year and variety and let guests see if they can tell the differences. This method does require hiding the packaging and not letting people know the price before hand. Though the more you pay can mean that it is nicer, it can just be because one wine maker spends more money advertising their product so have higher margins compared to an equally good, cheaper wine.

Cork Screw and Cork

In the future I give some useful tips for what to look for when tasting the different types of wine. Please post comments with anything you’d like to let me know, or any questions you have !