How to organize your first wine tasting
Port wine tasting in Porto
The end of the year is a great time for wine tastings as people are (hopefully) in a good mood because of the coming holiday season, want to gather together and outside activities are reduced because of the bad weather (at least in the northern hemisphere).
Who am I kidding, here what I would have written in June: Summer is a great time for wine tasting, people are hopefully in a good mood because of the good weather, want to gather together….ok so you understand where I am going: every season is good for wine tastings!!
Organizing one with your friends is not very difficult but there are some choices to be made and some planning to do.
This post should help any beginner to organize such an event. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to write to us.
We decided to start with an example for simplicity. Following that you can already organize your first tasting. If you want to learn a bit more, know some of the reasons behind our choices and be able to generalize, keep on reading!
Remember these are not rule, just guidelines to give you a start. Feel free to change whatever does not feel right and write to us to tell how it goes.
Your first tasting
We propose six different bottles from the Portuguese producer Luis Pato that you can find in our shop here.
The box consists on 6 bottles:
Vinhas Velhas branco 2019
Vinha Formal (branco) 2019
Vinhas Velhas tinto 2017
Vinha Barrosa 2017 (***)
Vinha Pan 2016
Vinha Pan 2013
The first 2 are white wines (grapes Bical, Cerceal, Sercialinho) while the last 4 are reds made from Baga. A Portuguese grape whose expression Pato masters.
With these 6 bottles you have more than enough for 6-8 people to taste some unfamiliar grapes (unless you are Portuguese) and to learn which one you like more (or dislike if you are unlucky). It will also allow to compare the same grape from different vineyards (3 and 4) and different vintages of the same wine (5 and 6).
(***) update January 2022: Vinha Barrosa is sold out. In our Pato tasting box this is replaced with the new vintage of Vinha Pan 2017
Count your glasses:
If you have 6 glasses per person it is very easy. Perhaps add one water glass per person too:)
With 4 glasses per person you should taste first both white wines (1 and 2), then clean those two glasses with some water and pour the four red (in order 3-4-5-6).
With 2 glasses per person go first with the whites (1-2), then with the red wines 3 and 4 and finally with the two vintages from Vinha Pan (5-6). Clean the glasses at each step with a little bit of water (this will also remind you do stay hydrated)
If you only have 1 glass per person you will not have the chance to compare any wine. In our opinion, it really takes out one important part of doing wine tastings. We would suggest to invest in some new glasses.
Tip 1: It is good to take notes (see later more details). Put a sheet of paper below the glasses and suggest your guests to write under the glass which wine they are drinking and to place the glass back to his place every time they drink. It is very easy to switch glasses, especially if you have 6 of them, and you will have a hard time knowing which wine you are drinking.
(***) update January 2022: Vinha Barrosa is sold out. In our box this is replaced with the new vintage of Vinha Pan 2017. The glass count needs to be adjusted, can you figure out? If not, write to us:)
Wine Serving
Wine 1 and 2 needs to be cold. Our suggestion is to put them already opened in the fridge. When the guests are sitting you can start serving. In few minutes they will reach the right temperature of 10-12C.
Tip 2: If you keep the glass between your hands will warm up faster.
Tip 3: Smell the wine few times while it is warming up. When you just poured it will have a mild flavor that will become more intense while the wine warms up.
The red wines can be kept outside of the fridge directly from the cellar. You should serve them around 16C.
Tip 4: If you do not have a cellar you should be aware that your apartment may be too warm and may spoil the wines (especially with heating on). Depending on the room temperature you may need to cool them down a bit.
Tip 5: Open the wines one hour before the guests arrive and pour few drops in your glasses to smell if they are spoiled and to give them some air. No need to decant, it will be enough the air that gets into the bottles while you pour your glass.
The tasting should last between 45 minutes and 1 hour. Do not pour too much wine, people should taste all the wines first. Then they can chose which one they want to taste again and refill.
Food serving
During the first hour we suggest you bring no food to the table so your senses are clean. Just water and some bread/breadsticks. After everybody tasted all wines you should pull the food out and they can try again wines and combine them with food as they like.
For the food you have different options. You can cook dinner for your guests, you can order take away (if any Portuguese restaurant is around even better) or if you want to keep it simple you can have cheese and cured meat and some other appetizers to share (most of the times this is what we do).
Tip 6: Buy enough food but do not cut all your cheese and salami at the beginning, you do not want left overs and you can cut more if needed.
That’s all! Now you can already start your planning, we would love to know how it went! Let us know and feel free to write for any questions.
(***) January 2022 Vinha Barrosa is sold out. In our box this is replaced
Waiting for the guests at home
End of the evening. Guests just left and we had to clean!
If you want to know a bit more details, keep on reading! The next part of this pos will be divided into Planning and Execution! Once more, remember that we are giving guidelines, no rules!
PLANNING
Planning requires few steps.
The first choice we recommend you to make is the theme. This is, in our opinion, the difference between a wine tasting and a simple gathering with friends to share a glass of wine! We love doing both but they are different. Additionally, a themed wine tasting is more educational.
Themes for tastings could be
Different grapes from different countries (e.g. Sauvignon Blanc from Loire valley, from Südtirol, from New Zealand)
Different wines from a region (e.g. Region: Piemonte, Wines: Barolo, Barbera, Dolcetto, Erbaluce)
Different vintages from the same wine (e.g. Sassicaia from 2005 to 2010)
Different wines from the same producer (as per our example above)
Cheap vs expensive
and many more (contact us if you want some help on themes)
Needless to say, you also need to take into account: availability and cost of the wines. You should always have a budget in mind where you split with your guess or you want to pay yourself.
After that you chose the theme we need to discuss numbers. How many wines/people/glasses?
Bottles
We would recommend 6 different wines (1 bottle each), you can make it with 3 too and up to 8. Consider then with less than 4 is over too quickly while with more than 8 it is difficult to maintain focus. Choose wisely.
With each bottle you will be able to fill easily 10 glasses and you can stretch it to 15. Depending on your audience and your own drinking expectation, you may want to have 2 bottles of each wine.
Exercise: Take an empty bottle, fill it with water and see how many glasses you can fill. Do it again changing the quantity per glass.
People
For a fun but controlled tasting we would suggest inviting a dozen people. If you have 8 bottles for 12 people total intake is 0.5L each. If you pour carefully there will be leftovers in the bottles after the first round so that people can refill the glasses for a second or third round (we’ll come back to this in the “execution” part).
Of course the number of people depends also on how much space you have and how many of your friends like wine tastings. Remember that not everybody has the same expectations so try to put together a crew of people that could enjoy the event you have in mind. Know your audience!
Side note: More than 15 people is not a tasting anymore, it is a party. Which is a great idea but then here is the only thing you need to do: buy the bottles using the following formula:
Bottles = number of people x DC
(where DC is “drinking capacity” measured in bottles per person).
Have a great party!
Glasses
Do not underestimate this point. Ideally you will have a lineup with X glass per person (where X is the number of different bottles). You need a big table and many glasses! For 6 bottles and 8 people you need almost 50 glasses. We know it is not always possible and depending on how many glasses available you will need to adjust. Remember if you want to reuse a glass you should clean it with some water before pouring the new wine.
We suggest having at least 2-3 glasses per person. Remember that one of the reasons to do a themed wines tasting is to learn about wines and about your personal taste. Which one you like, which one not. Do you feel and difference between the expensive and the cheap? So comparing wines with each other is needed. Additionally, less glasses you have more time you spend cleaning and pouring the new wine.
Side note: to compare wines is tricky. Many people told us: sometimes I just feel they are all the same. To make this post simpler we wrote a separate guide here. We suggest you to read it so you can also give some suggestions to your guests.
Food
Professional wine tastings are usually foodless, except some crackers. However, we suggest to have food. For organizational purposes we think the best and easiest way is to have appetizers: bread, breadsticks, olives and carrots, 3-4 different cheeses, 3-4 different salumi (cured meat), perhaps some fruit. We organized some tastings where we tried to do food&wine parking (e.g. Sardinian wines with Malloreddus alla campidanese) but it is really a lot of effort and.
So our advice is try to keep it simple, wine is the main dish here!
EXECUTION
Finally the fun part. We will only give some high level suggestions but otherwise feel free to do whatever you want and to tell us how it goes!
Prepare the table with the glasses and the sheet below to take notes. Open all bottles and keep in the fridge the ones that need to be cold. Pour yourself a bit of each to check if they are spoiled and to give them some air. Have the food ready but not in the table.
You can start straight with the tasting or you could offer an ice-breaker. We suggest a champagne or a prosecco to welcome the guests and waiting until everybody arrives and is ready to sit and start
Spend the first hour tasting all wines. Do not fill the glasses too much and have only water and breadsticks on the table. Try to take your notes and discuss the wines during this time.
If you are reusing the glasses, suggest your guests to rinse them with a bit of water between wines
When everybody tasted everything, bring the food to the table and enjoy it with the remaining wines and the company.
Experiment the wines with different food, try again the ones you liked - and why not the ones you did not. Does the food change your opinion? Which food goes better with what?
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this guide gave you some good ideas. We would love to know your opinion so feel free to reach out and share your experience!