Over the past few months, I’ve been getting a group of good friends over for a wine night. I decided to start hosting them for a few different reasons: 1. I wanted to share my love of wine with my friends, 2. It seemed like a fun thing activity for us to do together and 3. I just really love wine. The wine nights so far have been so fun that I thought I should share my tips in this guide on how to host a wine night.
My kind of wine night is a relaxed evening with friends which doesn’t take itself too seriously. Many of my friends aren’t really into wine, and so I host the wine nights to help make it more accessible. Rather than focusing on the notes of the wine, we instead chat about what we like and don’t like. It creates a fun environment where everyone can enjoy wine the way they want to enjoy it.
That being said, I created some printables which I encourage you to download and use! It adds a bit of fun to the evening, and if you want to take it to the next level you can even score the wines!
So let’s get into how to host a wine night Cheeky Vino style: simple, fun and not too serious!
Choosing the wines
Once you have your group of friends ready to go, it’s time to decide how to host the evening. Now I’m thinking if you’re anything like me, you love your friends, but you also don’t want to fork out hundreds to throw this thing. If this is you, the way I see it there are two options for you:
- Offer to curate the wines for the evening and get everyone to pitch in cash – this is a great option if you want to do a themed night eg. Sparkling wines, Shiraz from around the world etc.
- Get everyone to bring a bottle and a snack for the tasting – this option is perfect if you aren’t sure how many people will actually come, or if you don’t want to have to organise things in advance.
Both times that we’ve had a wine night we’ve opted for everyone bringing their own bottle. It’s worked quite well because if people don’t show up you don’t have to worry about being out of pocket. But more importantly, it’s a really fun way to run the night. Rather than you deciding on wines to try, everyone gets a say in the wines for the evening. It is really interesting seeing what everyone brings and finding out why. You get a really interesting selection of wines by doing this, and you also get to try wines you’ve never tried before.
Sure the pairings aren’t perfect, and you might end up with some duds. But that’s half the fun, right?
Setting up for the night
The good thing about this low key wine night is you don’t need much to set it up. But for things you might need, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. It really requires minimal effort to host one of these things, especially if your friends are bringing their own bottles!
What you’ll need to host the wine night:
- A good space – plenty of table space, enough chairs and a nice atmosphere. We’re talking getting out the Spotify playlists, maybe some candles, and having plenty of room for snacks!
- Wine glasses – you should have one wine glass per person. Try to aim for glasses that are the same to make pouring easier. But if you have mismatched glasses that’s ok too! At least no one will accidentally drink out of another friends glass!
- Corkscrew – this is something easily forgotten in Australia but at our wine night we had two bottles that had corks! Make sure you have one on hand
- Plenty of boards and bowls for snacks – unless you’d rather put the bags of chips out on the table, get out some nice serving bowls and boards for the evening’s snacks
- Water – make sure everyone has some water near them for washing their glasses between tastings
Take your wine night to the next level
Now you have the logistics sorted, up the ante with some of my printables. They’ll take your wine night to the next level!
- Labels for the wine bottles – You can tie these labels around each of the wine bottles with a bit of string. This makes it easy to identify each bottle throughout the night (and makes for cute photos). There’s also some blanks there if you want to use them to label the wine glasses
- Wine tasting cheat sheets – Print out a couple of these and place them on the table. Have them easily accessible to your guests so they can use them while describing the wine. It makes it easier for those who aren’t sure to know what to talk about and help to start the conversation
- Wine tasting score cards – If your friends are interesting in scoring the wines, I’ve created scorecards that make for a fun extra element for the night. Everyone can score the wine out of five and compare results at the end to work out what was the favourite bottle!
It doesn’t matter whether you want to keep the night low key or make it a little fancy. Really all you need to host a wine night is a. willing participants, b. wine, c. snacks (yes they are necessary). If you have these things, and a place to host, then you’ve got your event!
Running the wine night
Once you have all the prep sorted, all that’s left to do is host the wine night! You can host it however you want – I don’t think there is a right or wrong! As long as everyone is having fun and enjoying the wine, it’s going to be a good evening!
Normally I’ll give the wine we are trying to the person who brought it. I then ask them to introduce the wine and let everyone know why they brought it. This is a great way to get everyone involved in the tasting. It also leads to some hilarious conversations around their choice in wine!
I usually do a small tasting of the wine to start, and once everyone has tasted and discussed the wine I’ll pour more for those who want it. Otherwise, you’ll end up being on the floor pretty quickly! It also means people aren’t stuck with a big glass of wine they hate.
If you are scoring, you can award the most popular wine at the end. Otherwise, just let everyone go back to their favourite wine and carry on into the evening!
How to host a wine night
I hope you’ve found this guide useful and that it’s inspired you to host your own wine night! They are far more casual than the Blind Tasting Night that I ran earlier in the year, but still really fun. When it comes down to it, it’s really an excuse to get together with friends and enjoy some wine. Having chats about the bottles, enjoying some food and great conversation around wine. We normally don’t get the opportunity to try different wines together unless we’re on a winery tour, so this is a great activity to do while you catch up.
I cannot wait to host more of these wine nights. I find they bring people together over a common subject. Whether they are a wine lover or looking to learn more, it is an environment to talk about wine without feeling like you’re going to say the wrong thing. You’re amongst friends after all!
