Blind wine tastings are a great way to get together with friends and have some fun while learning about wine. I’ve been hosting an annual blind wine tasting for a few years now and have turned it into a fun game. I give out prizes for everything from the person who guessed the most wines, to the one who guessed the least. It’s a really fun night for people who love wine and who know nothing about it alike. So I wanted to share 5 tips for hosting a blind wine tasting from my experience.
I have a number of great resources that give you step-by-step instructions on how to host your own blind wine tasting party. You can find last year’s full guide here. But if you want to host your own, make sure you check out my Etsy store to download everything you need to host your own blind wine tasting! These are the tools I use myself, and make it easy and fun to get started.
Tip 1. Choose a good range of wines
Whether you are doing white, red or both, make sure you have a good range of different styles and regions to make the tasting more interesting and show the difference between the wines. You can do a mix of reds and whites if you want to have good breadth, otherwise sticking to one means you can explore more regions and varieties.
You don’t want to end up with a blind wine tasting full of Shiraz and Chardonnay, so make sure you look for some different wines that people may have never tried before, or regions that aren’t normally known for those wines. Chucking in a Shiraz from a cool climate region, or an unoaked Chardonnay will add to the fun of the event.
Tip 2. Serve wines from lightest to heaviest
There’s a reason cellar doors serve their wines from lightest to heaviest. It’s because your palate does benefit from trying the lightest wines first. So make sure you look at the wines you have and serve them in order. This is especially important if you are tasting whites and reds as you should serve the whites before jumping into heavier reds.
This doesn’t mean you have to stick to this tip by the book. It can be fun to throw a couple of wines around in the order to throw even the most seasoned wine drinker off track. But make sure overall the wine tasting has a relative order.
Tip 3. Make sure everyone has a scorecard
When everyone is trying the wines, it is important that they have somewhere to put their guesses and score the wines. My printables have scorecards which make it easy for guests to write their own tasting notes, along with their guesses for variety, region and score. It also means that it is easy for you to score at the end as you have everything in one place, along with your own scoring sheets to tally up the winners.
Tip 4. Throw some curve balls in
Adding some curve balls into your blind wine tasting is a great way to give everyone a laugh. Adding in some wines that people don’t expect throws people off and adds to the fun. Each year I always include a goon sack in the mix that people have to try and guess (and it is always funny when most people give it a high score), but there are some great other ways to add in some curve balls. Just don’t tell people you are doing it for an extra surprise at the end. Some of these include:
- A non-alcoholic wine – with the quality of non-alcoholic wine getting even better, it can be hard for people to work out what they’re tasting blind
- Dyeing a white wine red – Adding some red food colouring to a white wine will add a bit of confusion to the mix
- Using a natural wine or pet nat – Just make sure that it has a variety you can use for people to try and guess
- Other weird flavoured wines like coffee wine – Trust me, it exists and I used it one year. The results were hilarious
- Flat sparkling wine – they won’t really know what they’re drinking
Tip 5. Give out prizes for more than just the winner
Wine can be hard so to make the blind wine tasting more fun, give out some fun prizes for things other than guessing the most wines. I give out certificates for everything from least guessed to who guessed the goon sack. It means that everyone can win no matter if they like wine or not.
In Summary: 5 tips for hosting a blind wine tasting
I hope these 5 tips for hosting a blind wine tasting help inspire your next blind wine tasting party. But remember the biggest tip of all, to have fun with it! These tastings are really enjoyable and definitely a great way to get friends more involved in wine. Don’t forget to grab my printables to help with the planning!