Wine Tasting

You and your friends can get a lot out of having a wine tasting. It is a good idea to enjoy slightly fewer wines in order to go deeper.

Join some good friends who are also interested in wine and food. Ask if they are fresh for a tasting or maybe even to start a wine club. Talk to each other about how and how to shape that club. How serious are you? Should everything be tasted blind? Is there a minimum or maximum price level? Take turns hosting?

A good recipe for a wine club can look like this:
• Gather 8–10 people so you can make do with one bottle of each wine.
• BYO (Bring your own) is a good idea as a general principle.
• Hosts take turns.
• The host sets the date and theme a couple of months in advance.
• Guests bring one to three bottle(s) per person within the theme.
• The host cooks food that, if possible, matches the theme.
• The host presents and serves the wines.
• Be curious, taste and enjoy the lovely drops and good company.

Turn up the guessing game and learning
Consider seriously tasting blind when you have become a little more familiar with tasting. There is so much learning from tasting blind. However, it requires a certain degree of confidentiality and security among the participants in order for you to dare to open up with your guess, as it will certainly be guessed in the forest. Many times. So make sure you have a good atmosphere where you can laugh at yourself and each other.

Examples of themes could be a vine variety, a district or a type of wine. You can also be lucky to have a lot of bottles from the same manufacturer in different vintages. It’s called a vertical tasting. Horizontal tasting is when you have a number of producers from the same district in one vintage. Only your imagination sets the limits when setting a theme.

Practicalities
The host should ensure that tasting takes place at a good dining table in a well-lit room without too many unnecessary fragrance-disrupting elements such as scented candles, roasting cheese and the like.

Wine tastes best in a good glass. The tasted glasses should be clearly transparent and without engravings or facets. A water glass should be available for each participant. Place plenty of water on the table, preferably with and without bubbles, but preferably without lemon and other flavourings.

A saliva bucket is often a smart idea. You can easily use a champagne cooler, bowl or carafe if you do not have a specific saliva bucket available.

The smart socks here are great for hiding a bottle’s identity, so it’s a little harder to guess which wine is being tasted.

Be curious, taste and have fun. Remember that tasting wine is not a competition. On the contrary, it’s a team sport.

Gather the wine friends and explore the world of wine.