How To Host Your Own Wine Tasting

The best new way to entertain? Host an informal wine tasting evening. It’s a fun chance to get together with your friends and drink a few great wines, and also some delicious appetizers. I’ll show you how to host a wine tasting party at home for family and friends.

You can set the mood by setting a casual buffet table, if the weather still allows it in your area, outdoors will be great. No need for precious linens and china, show off the wood of your outdoors table, or use one of our casual linen coverings. Nothing fancy, maybe a gorgeous floral arrangement, that always says Celebrate!

Sommelier Apron

 

HOW TO HOST YOUR OWN WINE TASTING:

1. Invite only as many people as your table will serve comfortably. Eight guests, maybe ten, is a perfect number, it will allow enough room for your guests to gather around the buffet table, and comfortably enjoy tasting the wine and enjoy your small bites.

Tire-Bouchon

2. Choose a theme. You can choose to compare all the same wines, but from different vineyards. Or…compare wines from California with their counterparts from France, such as French Chardonnay and California Chardonnay, and French Pinot Noir vs. California Pinot Noir.  A good wineshop should have a knowledgable staff that will be able to help you choose some interesting choice of bottles.

3. Provide enough glasses. If you want to be a little formal, you’ll need one glass per guest for each bottle. If you are keeping it more casual, you only need one white wine glass and one red wine glass per guest. Just make sure you rinse the glass with water between pours.

French Wine Glasses

4. On your buffet table, arrange the glasses and wine bottles in a straight line to make them easy to reach.

Serve a sparkling white wine in a champagne glass as a welcome toast to begin your wine tasting.  Three white wines of the same varietal {served in a separate glass} for each guest, and three red wines of the same varietal {again each in its own glass or rinse before the next pouring} makes an excellent wine tasting.

Tire-Bouchon

What you serve for your small bites is wide open, serve what you love, and what is easy!  A charcuterie board is always a good beginning, and you can add shrimp, bruschetta, even a light soup and what ever else appeals to you.

You might want to pass out little cards or notes and pens so your guest can talk about and compare the wines and take notes.  Adding some French antique or vintage wine accoutrements makes your wine tasting reflect your personal style, and adds interesting things to talk about! I particularly love our Tire Bouchons, each direct pull cork screw is made in France from a grapevine. {A fabulous host or hostess gift too!}

Wine Notes:

{A good beginning for talking about wine with your guests}

Chardonnay typically has flavors of apple, pear and citrus. How do the California varietals differ from the French ones?  {We’ve found that the California wines are a bit more “buttery” in taste than the French Chardonnay.}

Wine Measures

Pinot Noir usually has markers of fruit, cherry and berry, and warm spices.  The French Pinot Noirs tend to have almost a “forest floor” hint, while our California Pinot Noirs tend to be much more about the fruits.

I hope you have a fun evening with friends, discussing and learning more about the wines you choose to serve! 

Linen Wine Bag

Our shop FrenchGardenHouse sells some fantastic French Wine related items, both antique and new, to make your wine tasting personal, and visually appealing. Some of them might have some interesting stories to tell!