How to Host a Wine Tasting at Home

Pour six wines at 2 oz each, in order from lightest to heaviest, with one glass per guest and bread and water on the table. That is a tasting, and it is less work than a dinner party because the wine is the event. One bottle of each wine covers ten to twelve people, so six bottles runs a tasting for a full room.

The plan

Pick a theme, because it does the work

A theme is the difference between a tasting and six bottles of wine. The two that never fail are one grape across several regions — six Chardonnays from six places — or one region across several grapes. Either gives people a specific thing to compare instead of asking them to have an opinion from nowhere.

Other themes that work: a price ladder of the same grape, old world against new world, or six wines under one budget. Avoid themes that need knowledge to appreciate, like six vintages of the same wine, unless the room already knows wine.

The order, and why it matters

Serve in order of weight: sparkling, light white, fuller white, rose, light red, heavy red, then anything sweet. A heavy tannic red coats the palate and makes a delicate white poured after it taste like water, and a sweet wine makes the next dry wine taste sour. Both ruin the comparison you set the evening up to make.

Pour all six at once if you have the glasses, or pour in pairs and compare two at a time, which most people find easier. Keep one wine on the table as an anchor so there is always something to compare against.

Covering the labels

1. Slide each bottle into a paper bag or wrap it in foil, and number the bags one to six.
2. Tell the room what the six wines are as a set — the grapes, the regions, the rough price band — without saying which is which.
3. Give everybody a sheet of paper with six rows and three columns: what they smell, what they taste, what they would pay.
4. Reveal at the end, in order of the room’s favorites rather than the order they were poured. The cheap bottle beating the expensive one is the moment people remember.

The scoring sheet matters more than it sounds. People taste more carefully when they have to write something down, and it gives the quieter guests a way to take part without talking about wine in front of everybody.

Glasses, temperature and decanting

One glass shape for everything is correct at a tasting: comparing wines in different glasses compares the glasses. A universal or white wine shape is the right choice, and the Schott Zwiesel Tritan stems are the ones we would use because they are lead-free crystal with a thin rim that survives a dishwasher.

Serve whites around 45 to 50F and reds around 60 to 65F, which means taking reds out of a warm room rather than only chilling the whites. Decant the biggest red an hour ahead — a tasting is one of the few settings where the difference is genuinely visible side by side, as is a wine decanter worth it goes into.

The food

During the tasting: plain bread or water crackers, a mild cheese, and plenty of water. That is all. Strong cheese, charcuterie, olives and anything spicy will dominate the wine, and the people who brought good bottles will notice.

Afterward: put out a real board. People are an hour and a half in and hungry, nothing is being compared any more, and this is the right moment for the cheese you actually wanted to serve. Quantities are in how much cheese and meat per person, and a chilled marble board keeps soft cheese intact while the conversation runs on.

What to put on the table

• Schott Zwiesel Tritan glasses: one shape for all six wines, lead-free Tritan crystal, dishwasher safe.
• Cork & Mill decanter: full-bottle capacity for the big red, on an acacia stand.
• Homeries marble board: chilled, for the cheese that comes out afterward.
• RSVP porcelain markers: six markers and a pen, for labeling the cheeses so the board does not need explaining.

How much wine to buy if the tasting turns into a party is in how much wine for a party.

What it costs, and where to buy

Six bottles and some bread is the whole budget, and it splits easily — a tasting is the one kind of party where asking each guest to bring a bottle to a brief actually improves the evening. Give them the theme and a rough price ceiling and you get six wines nobody has tasted, which is better than six you chose yourself.

If you are buying all six, a wine shop will usually assemble a themed set if you tell them the theme and the budget. That conversation is also where the useful information comes from, and it costs nothing.