Hosting a blind wine tasting party

For the third year in a row, I hosted a blind wine tasting night. We always have such a great time at these events, and I feel like over the years I’ve got it down to an art. This year was our best yet, and so I thought it was worth refreshing my guide. I created a guide the first year that I ran the event, but since then I’ve made some changes to make the event run even more smoothly. So I bring you the 2021 guide to hosting a blind wine tasting party!

What is a blind wine tasting party?

Blind wine tastings can seem a little intimidating to people who don’t love wine. Many of our friends love wine but don’t have detailed knowledge about them. To them, a blind wine tasting might seem too hard. So instead, we approach it as a fun game where everyone can be a winner! This is what hosting a blind wine tasting is all about. An event like this means everyone can enjoy it without the event becoming all about who is the best at tasting wine. Honestly, in my experience, those who know the most about wine don’t usually win (although they did this year).

A blind wine tasting party is all about making wine more accessible to your friends and family. It is a way to enjoy tasting wine, learn a little bit, but have a lot of fun while you’re doing it. By the end, everyone is having a good laugh. I find everyone really opens up and starts talking about what they are tasting without feeling embarrassed. Everyone is in the same boat, and it is a great night filled with fun, wine and friends.

What you will need

There are a few things you need when hosting a blind wine tasting party, and I’ll start by saying the beauty of it is that it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to host. But having a couple of key things on hand will make it run very smoothly. To make it even easier, I’ve got some great printables you can download which I’ve developed that we used for our blind wine tasting party!

For guests

For your guests you will need the following on hand:

• Wine glasses – make sure they are similar in size and you can see the colour of the wine easily (no cloudy, patterned or coloured glasses)
• Pens
• Tasting sheet – You can download my tasting sheet here and print off as many as you need
• Tally sheet – This is a printable you can use too and allows a group of guests to record the number of wine varieties and regions in the tasting. This can be used as a guide throughout the tasting for guests so they have a reference point
• Guides – I normally print out some wine guides from Wine Folly to help the guests with choosing the wines. Only do this if you think they need it!
• Spittoons – One on each table in case people want to spit the wine, or just flat out don’t like it
• Water – Make sure everyone has plenty of water for washing their glasses out and staying hydrated
• Snacks – I make sure there are plenty of snacks on hand throughout and I replenish as we go. Bread and crackers are a great palate cleanser between wines and I also usually do some cheeses.

For running the event

For running the event, you will need a couple of things on hand:

• An area away from the party to keep and pour the wines – A study is a great spot to do this or you can go into another room. You need somewhere where no one can see the wines so you don’t give anything away!
• Wines (obviously) – Either get people to bring their own or create your own selection.
• Carafes – Have one per table so you can pour the wine into the carafe and take it out for tasting. This ensures no one knows what the wine is.
• A master wine list – You can get my printable for this here. As people bring the wines you can record them on the list so you know which wine is which. Then you create the tally of the wine varieties and regions from this
• A scoring sheet for the awards – There’s a printable I’ve created for this too which you can use to record the final results of the wine tasting
• Certificates and prizes if you’re doing them – I have some fun certificates that you can use for prizes at the end of the tasting but you don’t have to use them. You can make up your own awards or not have any at all! I also get some fun prizes from the two dollar store to make it a bit of a laugh.
• A funnel – I find a funnel is helpful if you have any leftover wines from the carafes so you can get it back into the bottle. It means less waste!

You can download all the printables in one go via this link.

How to choose the wines

There are a couple of ways you can choose the wines. Firstly, you need to decide what type of wines you want to taste. We normally do a red wine tasting but it would be just as easy to do a white wine tasting. The event would run very similarly. I don’t recommend mixing the two because it becomes too obvious.

Once you’ve chosen red or white, now choosing the wines. I find it is the most fun getting everyone to bring along a bottle of their choice. It keeps the cost down for you but also means that you get some wines you may not have even thought to try. The only risk here is that you can end up with a lot of the same wine – but you could negate this by suggesting a theme, or assigning everyone a region or variety. I found our 2021 blind wine tasting party had an incredible variety and only three Shiraz where normally we end up with more.

What I would recommend is throwing in a few curveballs into the mix. It’s a fun way to get people guessing and keep them on their toes. Each year I always put in a cask wine as part of the tasting and ask guests to try and guess the Goon. This year was the first year that people guessed it, but normally it is surprisingly hard to pick!

I also usually throw in a weird wine to really throw people off. The first year I put a non-alcoholic wine in the mix, the second year I coloured a Rose red with food colouring, and this year I threw in a coffee shiraz. It’s always interesting to see if people pick it or not! You can get really creative with this and everyone can’t believe it when you tell them.

Hosting the blind wine tasting party

1. As you get the wines, use this template to record the variety, the region and who brought it. Then, decide the order you will bring the wines out and note this next to the wines. This will become your wine run sheet. Make sure you fill out the tally for regions and wine varieties too
2. Make sure every guest has a scorecard, a pen and a wine glass. Also, lay out any guides you want to provide on the table along with wine tally sheets, snacks, water and spittoons.
3. Get everyone to sit down and introduce the concept of blind wine tasting. Let them know how it will work, and how to score each wine, including the rating system and what to look for.
4. Let them know the varieties that they will be tasting. This gives guests a frame of reference so they know what the wine could be so they can narrow down their guesses. I used the wine master list to tally what wines and regions we had, and read this out so guests could record it on their own tally sheet.
5. Head into your secret wine room and pour a taste of the first bottle into the carafes. Then take the carafes out and let everyone pour the wine themselves.
6. Allow them some time to try the wine and score before bringing out the next wine. Be on hand to answer any questions about wine tasting, but make sure you don’t give it away! Guests can add any tasting notes about the wine, then guess the wine variety, region and give the wine a score out of 5.
7. Take that wine away, reserve the rest and then pour the next wine!
8. At the end of the tasting, grab everyone’s scorecards and score them. I then noted the winners on the winner sheet.
9. Once you have the winners, go out and announce the wines in their order to the group. This is the fun part!
10. Allow your guests some time to check out their scorecards and talk about the result, then enjoy the rest of the wines over dinner

Blind wine tasting party prizes

So once you’ve had all the tastings, I usually tally up all the scores and give out some fun prizes. It’s a great way to end the night and adds a bit more fun to hosting a blind wine tasting party. I also give out prizes along with the certificates for a little extra fun.

If you want some inspiration, you can download my certificates, or here are the prizes I give out below:

• Supreme wine taster – for the person who guessed the most wine varieties correctly
• The finder of the red wine award – for the person who guessed the least amount of wine varieties correctly
• The goon whisperer – for the person who guessed which wine was the goon
• The world traveller – for the person who guessed the most regions correctly
• Love all the wines – for the person who had the highest amount of points across all their wines
• The wine critic – for the person who had the lowest amount of points across all their wines
• The worst wine award – for the wine that scored the lowest across everyone
• The best wine award – for the wine that scored the highest across everyone
• The most unique tasting notes award – for the person who had the most inventive tasting notes (this was very fun to decide and is quite subjective)

In summary: Hosting a blind wine tasting party

Hosting a blind wine tasting party is a great way to enjoy wine with friends. We had so much fun on the night, and everyone really got into trying the different wines and working out what they were. The best part is that it isn’t just about winning – everyone just gives it their best shot! I hope this guide inspires you to try one of your own, and with the printables it makes it very easy. Just grab your friends and a few bottles of wine for a night of fun.