How to organize a wine tasting?

A wine tasting and socialize is a wonderful way to enjoy wine, wine experience and socializing together.

I assume that your tasting is not the analytical evaluation of wines, but that you simply want to broaden the basis of a few wines in the company of your wine horizons.

What do you need? (A brief checklist)

• Corkscrew
• Glasses, two glasses per person are useful because they often want to compare two wines directly
• Paper and scribe
• Vessel, evacuate the remnants
• Spitting vessel, if you want to spit, that's a question of the amount of wines to be tasted and whether such drivers are among the guests
  
• Bread, crackers or cookies in between, and I even consider it in the correct order for wines not helpful to distinguish between the wines of the mouth as to "neutralize" with bread, but it is expected by many people.
• Water for drinking or to rinse the glasses
• white tablecloth (because of the assessment of the color)

Decant wine?

To decant find some information in the corresponding article in the section . If you want to decant the wine for your sample, there is often the problem of the carafes. Who has been 10 or 15 decanter decanters at home? A simple solution is to decant the wine to gel and then back into the bottle. Back before the casting, it is recommended for older wines Depot, rinse the bottle. This way you can serve decanted with only one pitcher in the house several wines - the carafe is flush between wines of course.

How many wines?

It depends on the experience of participants and also on how seriously the sample is applied. In a cozy little round of experienced tasters, I would provide no more than five or six different wines. This can be increased up to maximum of 10 to 15 wines, I would be more reserved to professionals.

Also, the problem remains, it should. For instance, if a very small round tasted ten different wines, it has at the end of ten almost full bottle. This problem can be solved eg through decant into small bottles. More information about the lifting of wines here.

Not only because of the way, one of eight people, a maximum of ten people for a wine tasting is ideal because sufficient number of persons in this bottle.

Which wines?

There are really no limits to the imagination. You can place the sample under a theme, such as grapes, regions, countries. Also, comparisons are always interesting to conventional barrel extension, New World to Old World German Riesling from the rest of the world, etc.

But you can also simply agree that everyone brings a "nice" bottle. Then one should agree on price limits, so no one feels obligated to spend too much money.

If you want, even at the design of its samples based on the following book:
The Wine Tasting - A practical wine basics in 12 lessons
The author, Judy Ridgway, has put together there for twelve instructive suggestions for wine tasting.

Glasses

There is also some information here .

Among the wines you can rinse out the glasses. I think this is unnecessary if two similar wines will be tasted in succession. For very different wines or wine after a bad and even before the first wine (!) You should rinse the glass in each case.

To flush is water or a simple, neutral wine that is ready for this purpose. A proven method is also easy to share a sip of wine in the next round, from one glass to another glass. When decant into the next glass each, we will then turn the glass so that as the entire inner wall is wet with the wine.

Once wet with wine, the glasses are "aviniert" or "wine green", ie they have some basic wine aroma. The aromatic leaves many details of the various wines, which are then tried, stand out better.

The order of the wines

The correct order of the wines is important. There are several rules that must be combined to make sense:

1. similar wines (eg same grape) in a row
2. in ascending order by residual sugar, so only dry wines and sweet wines later
3. low degree of alcohol
4. white with red

Blind or open?

If wines should be tasted and compared seriously, must be blind, of course, that the bottle label must be covered. There are cases that can be slipped over the bottles. If this is not at hand, is ideal foil, wrapping it into the bottles. Previously, you should remove the capsule. Who exactly does it need to uncork the bottles are wrapped well (the Korkbrand may provide clues to the origin).

Who takes it very well, even the wine must pour into neutral bottles, because of course, bottle shape and color may already may be an indication of the content.

Please always be numbered in the wines, so you have a reference for the interview and the notes.

An informal group, a sample is normally open. This has the advantage that you can directly put wine and taste perception in relation to each other.

Utz Graafmann