Many companies, from small businesses to large corporations, treat employees to an entertaining wine tasting experience. But the thing is, hosting a wine tasting party is more than just trying as many wines as possible. It’s about engaging your guests with your brand and making the experience memorable. So, how can you throw the perfect wine tasting event? Here are some tips to help you out.
Clearly define your goals for the event
The first step is crucial. Before diving into the details, like the specific wines, decorations, and playlists, it’s essential to know exactly what you want to achieve. Take the time to clearly define and document your objectives. Whether it’s gaining new customers, getting VIP sign-ups, or raising funds for a cause, having a clear vision of your desired outcome is essential. Make sure your team understands this vision well in advance.
Know your audience
Planning a tasting event involves more than just arranging glassware. Consider the expectations and knowledge base of your guests. What are they looking to gain from the tasting? If you’re hosting beginners, the approach will be different than for seasoned industry professionals seeking more advanced experiences. Knowing your audience helps you determine the necessary products, materials, budget, and theme for the event.
Set and manage your budget wisely
It’s essential to be mindful of your expenses since each taste tester your guest tries comes with a cost. Make sure your wine lineup doesn’t exceed your budget, and keep other aspects like event marketing and catering within your budget. If you’re charging guests a specific fee, ensure that the number of wines or food served aligns with what they’re paying for while staying within your budget.
Pick the best setting
When choosing the date and time, consider your calendar, seasonal trends, and weather conditions to choose the most suitable date and time for your tasting event. Decide whether you want it to be a daytime or evening affair, and consider when your guests are more likely to attend based on the time of year.
Also, the venue you select is crucial. It should be easily accessible and aligned with your overall theme. If you’re hosting at your winery, provide clear directions and highlight the unique features that guests can expect. Give them a compelling reason to come to your location.
Choose between a casual walk-around approach with tasting stations or a more formal sit-down dinner event with curated presentations and courses. Consider which format best suits your objectives and audience.
If you’re hesitant to host the event at your house, consider using a restaurant. Many establishments offer private rooms and corkage services at a reasonable cost. You can simply buy dinner from them, and they’ll provide the space you need.
No matter where you choose to hold your event, it is important to always remember the proper etiquette for wine tasting. If you are wondering what these are, you may read our guide to Essential Etiquette for Walkaround Wine Tastings.
Consider hiring a bartender or sommelier
To add an extra touch of expertise and enhance the experience, consider having a bartender or sommelier at your event. They can answer questions about the wines and help match the right selections to your guests. This also adds credibility and authority to your business, enhancing its reputation.
Decide how much wine you will need
How much wine do you need for a wine tasting event? Well, for an event with 12 guests and one presenter, one bottle per wine is usually sufficient. If there are more guests, you may need to open additional bottles to ensure everyone receives a satisfactory amount in each pour. Make sure each guest has a minimum of two wine glasses.
Each bottle contains enough wine for 13 2oz portions. A 2oz pour is enough for guests to get a good taste without consuming too much. Remember, it’s a tasting event, not a drinking party. Provide pouring buckets for unfinished samples.
Offer 8-10 different wines, presenting them in rounds of two at a time. This allows guests to appreciate the different flavors. To create a well-balanced tasting session, its recommended to serve six or seven red wines and two or three white wines. Red wines are generally more popular at tastings.
To keep the presentation interesting, select classic wine grapes and blends from various renowned wine regions. This provides talking points and keeps the tasting diverse.
For private wine tasting events, consider hiring a sommelier or educator who can choose the individual wines. They often have good relationships with wine distributors, ensuring high-quality wines while staying within your budget.
Choose a theme for your wine tasting event
Having a theme for your wine tasting event adds focus and helps create the right ambiance. Announcing the theme in advance also helps builds anticipation. Having a defined theme enables you to choose wines that work well together in sequence and pair with similar foods. The key is to choose a theme that caters to your audience and meets their expectations for the event.
For example, if you’re focusing on Bourbon, you can build a theme around factors like age, mash bill, flavoring grains, proof, region, small batch, single barrel, or limited releases. Alternatively, you can use the tasting to highlight a range of considerations, qualities, or brands. You can limit your wine options depending on the special method the wine is produced (ex: organic wine tasting), the country of origin (ex: Spanish wines), age (ex: pre-2010 vintage wines), and region (ex: Napa, Loire Valley, etc.).
Examples of themes can include:
- Key grapes from around the world
- Wines rated 95 and above
- Wines of Italy
- A night in Tuscany
- A night in Naples
- Old World vs. New World
- Italy vs. France
- France vs. California
- Exploring the Southern Hemisphere
- Wine and food pairing (serve a heavy appetizer with each wine)
- Vintage wines that match the anniversary or birthday theme
- Budget-friendly wines
- Wines from Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list
- Sparkling wines and Champagnes
- Wines from a specific vintage
- Bordeaux and Bordeaux-style wines
- Local wines
Narrow down your wine choices
The world of wine is complex, which makes choosing the wines to present a bit difficult. But if you choose a theme for the wine tasting event, you can easily narrow down your choice.
When selecting specific wines, focus on important classic grape and region combinations, and ensure diversity. Here are some suggestions:
Whites
- Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre (France)
- Chardonnay from Chablis (France)
- Chenin Blanc from Vouvray (France), or South Africa
- Riesling from Mosel (Germany)
- Torrontes from Argentina
- Albariño from Rías Baixas (Spain)
- Gewürztraminer from Alsace (France)
- Viognier from Condrieu (France)
Reds
- Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux (France), or Napa Valley
- Pinot Noir from Burgundy (France), Oregon, or New Zealand
- Sangiovese (“Chianti” or “Brunello di Montalcino”) from Tuscany (Italy)
- Nebbiolo from Barolo or Barbaresco (Italy)
- Syrah from the Rhône Valley (France), or Australia
- Tempranillo from Rioja (Spain)
- Zinfandel from Paso Robles (California)
- Grenache from Southern Rhône Valley (France)
- Malbec from Argentina
- Carménère from Chile
- Cabernet Franc from Loire Valley (France)
- Gamay from Beaujolais (France)
If you have a sommelier, trust their expertise in selecting individual wines. They have extensive tasting experience and can guide you toward producers and vintages that will shine during the event, ensuring the best quality within your chosen budget.
Also, avoid purchasing wines from supermarkets. They are often higher priced and lower in quality compared to what you can find at a reputable wine store. Supermarkets also tend to have a limited global selection.
Consider including a sweet or fortified wine towards the end of the evening, such as Sauternes dessert wine or Port. It can be even more enjoyable when paired with a dessert, like crème brûlée with Sauternes or chocolate cake with Port.
Pair wine with food and palate cleansers
Once you have chosen a theme, then you can move on to selecting the food to go with it. Even if your theme isn’t wine and food pairing, it’s always recommended to include food at a wine tasting event to make sure your guests won’t go home hungry. Also, the palate can become easily fatigued during a wine tasting, so to help refresh the palate, bread, and crackers are often served. Here are some tips for pairing food with wine:
- Ensure that the theme of the event and the wines correspond or align well with the type of food you are preparing. Many wines are best enjoyed alongside cuisine from their place of origin, such as French and Italian wines.
- Cheese, charcuterie, honey, and chocolate tastings often complement the wine selections nicely. If you have access to an outdoor space, you can even consider offering a guided cigar tasting with live cigar rollers. We can provide experts in these and other delicacies like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tea, jam, and coffee.
- To refresh the palate, offer neutral-flavored palate cleansers like bread or crackers. Place small dishes of these near the tasting area for guests to help themselves as needed.
- Provide water pitchers for palate cleansing and quick rinses of glasses between wines.
Prepare a checklist of the tools you need
Since the goal of your event is wine tasting, you’ll want to set it up the right way. To do this, you have to provide specific tools and items.
Here’s a complete supply checklist for a wine tasting event:
- Suitable location and space for the event
- Tables and chairs (for seated events)
- Tasting stations (6-10 foot table per station for reception-style events)
- High-top tables or other furniture (for reception-style events)
- Table covers and decorations
- Wines for the tasting
- Wine glasses (2 per person for seated events, 1 for reception-style events)
- Food for pairing (can include crackers, bread, cheeses, charcuterie, olives, chocolates, and more)
- Ice buckets or cooling crate
- Ice (for white wine, beer, and whiskey tastings)
- Dump buckets or spitoons
- Paper and pens (for attendees to take notes)
- Wine glass marker pens
- Mini-plates, forks, and display platters for food/pairing items
- Napkins
- Water bottles or water glasses for attendees
- Clean-up supplies after the event
Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind:
- In a wine tasting event, make sure you have plenty of wine glasses to allow for two wines per round, and be prepared to provide additional ones in case of breakages. While multiple glasses are not necessarily required, having at least two can enhance the experience by allowing you to compare and contrast similar wine styles.
- If tasters would be using the same glass throughout the night, provide wine glass marker pens so they can write their name on it, or better yet, provide wine glass charms to help them identify their glass. If it’s a small event and you have the budget, you can provide personalized wine glasses for your guests with their names to take home as souvenirs.
- Use a white tablecloth to provide a neutral background so tasters can evaluate the wine’s color and other visual characteristics.
- White wines are best served chilled, so ice buckets need to be on hand.
- As part of responsible alcohol service, ensure that each table has a spittoon and drinking water. Tasting multiple wines in a row can be overwhelming, and having these items available helps guests manage their intake.
- While the wines may be amazing, it’s important to offer a way for guests to safely discard wine they choose not to consume. Provide spit buckets and make them attractive, even if it’s only meant to catch spit and unwanted wine.
- Make sure to offer tasting mats or tables where guests can jot down notes. This way, guests will be able to record their observations and ensure they can remember any wine advice or insights you share during the event.
Serve wines in the right order
To ensure a proper wine tasting experience, you need to serve the wines in the correct order. Present the tasting order from lowest to highest proof or alcohol content. This helps reduce alcohol fatigue and allows participants to engage their senses fully. For wine tastings, start with whites before moving on to reds and progress from lighter to fuller-bodied wines, as appropriate. Ideally, begin with sparkling wines, then progress through light whites, rich whites, light reds, dark reds, and finally, fortified dessert wines.
Remember to chill certain wines before the tasting. Generally, sparkling wines, white wines, and rosés should be served chilled, while reds are best enjoyed slightly below room temperature.
Follow this suggested order:
- Sparkling wines
- Light whites (unoaked white wines, e.g., Pinot Grigio)
- Heavier whites (oaked wines, e.g., Chardonnay)
- Rosé
- Light reds (e.g., Pinot Noir or Rioja wines)
- Heavier reds (e.g., Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel)
- Dessert and sweet wines (e.g., Port or ice wine)
Share your knowledge and tips
It’s surprising how little people know about wine, and as the host of a wine tasting event, you have the opportunity to share valuable tips and information with your guests. Here are some suggestions:
- Begin by drawing attention to the appearance of each wine. Discuss its color and observe the legs or viscosity.
- Teach participants how to properly “nose” a wine: Hold the glass at chin level, below the nose, and slowly bring it up while gently inhaling. Keep lips slightly parted to carry the scent through the sinuses and across the tongue.
- Similarly, guide them on tasting. Encourage participants to take a sip, coating their entire mouths before swallowing. Subsequent sips can focus on identifying initial, secondary (mid-palate), and finishing flavors.
- Emphasize the importance of trusting their own senses. Everyone experiences smell and taste differently, so no one should be made to feel “wrong” about their perceptions.
Close with a sharing session
In an event like this, creating an interactive experience is important rather than just talking to your guests. After the wine tasting, invite attendees to participate in a sharing session. This can be a Q&A session or a casual gathering in the bar or standing area. Encourage attendees to discuss their thoughts and impressions of the wines, allowing them to share the newly acquired information and engage in conversations about the event. Ask about their favorites – you can gift them full bottles of their preferred wines as a thank-you for attending or surprise them with a bottle on their birthday.
Engaging in conversation not only builds confidence that everyone is in for a great experience, but it also helps the presenter gauge the participants’ knowledge level and tailor the experience accordingly. If the audience consists of beginners, focus on presenting key points in a simpler manner. For more experienced participants, ask thought-provoking questions and debunk misconceptions to deepen their knowledge.
