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Host a Wine Tasting Party at HomeEver wanted to host your own wine tasting party? Here is a complete guide to mastering the art of tasting and comparing wines with friends at home. This article focuses on Chardonnay, but it can easily be adapted for other wine varieties.
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By Les Kincaid America is on a quest to learn more about wine. Most of us have been to wine and cheese parties, but how about taking it one step further with an at-home tasting? Home wine tastings can be simple, fun and cost effective. The Varietal ChallengeOne of the best ways to explore the nuances of wine is to hold a single varietal tasting, I suggest that you choose six wines made from one important wine grape, with each wine originating from a different wine-growing region. The "Varietal Challenge" allows participants to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the way different climates, soils and growing conditions affect the aroma, taste and texture of wines made from the same grape. Home Wine Tasting Party OverviewFor a first at-home tasting, I suggest that you select the following six different Chardonnay-based wines:
Try to keep the price of each of these wines about the same. One thing to note: The word "Chardonnay" does not appear on white Burgundy labels such as Chablis or Meursault. Most French wines are labeled by region, not grape type. By French wine law, however, all white Burgundies must be made from the Chardonnay grape. The Wine Tasting PartySet aside at least one to two hours. One bottle will easily serve eight to ten people for a tasting, so the ideal number of tasting participants is eight to ten. Wine Shopping List
Conducting a Chardonnay At-Home TastingNote: While this activity is focused on the Chardonnay varietal experience, for review purposes, many of the basic principles for at-home wine-tastings are provided. 1. Select guests who have voiced an interest in learning about wine to join the at-home tasting. Remember, you want your guests to eagerly exchange descriptions, evaluations and opinions. 2. In order to compare the wines with one another, you'll need six appropriate wineglasses per guest. The six glasses should be standing side by side in front of each taster. To provide the very best sensory "laboratory" for learning the wines and your palate, each glass will contain one of the six Chardonnays. 3. The wines should be cool, but not cold. If the bottles feel cold to your hand, let them sit for ten minutes at room temperature before opening and pouring. If the temperature is too cold, the flavor and aroma will be inhibited. If the temperature is too warm, the wines will taste too alcoholic and not show their fruit well. 4. Provide water glasses for those who want to sip water to clear their palates after each taste. (optional) 5. Uncork all of the bottles. 6. Pour about two ounces into the glass for smell and taste evaluation. Begin by looking at the color of the wines, move on to the swirling and sniffing, and last to the tasting. Give your guests enough time to consider all the aspects of each wine. Focus first on the appearance of the wines, then on the nose, then how the wine tastes in your mouth (on the palate) and finally, how each wine finishes. 7. Alternating the wine samples can be illuminating. For example, after smelling the three Chardonnays in sequence, go back to No.1. With the scents of the other wines in your memory, this time it probably will strike you differently. Comparing wines by going back and forth to smell and taste is an invaluable sensory-analytic method, and is key to developing your understanding of what you are experiencing. After a while, it will become second nature. 8. You will, of course, act as teacher to your fellow tasters. As such, you should explain to them what you're doing, and above all, why you're using these procedures. Discussion among the participants is as desirable as it is inevitable. 9. Most people leap to judgment ("This wine is weird!" or "I love this wine!" etc.) before making any attempt to describe what they're experiencing. Try to encourage the other participants to follow your lead--to describe the characteristics of the wines before pronouncing judgment. If some happen to like a particular wine and a participant does not, ask for his or her reasons. Ultimately, all will learn more from those who disagree than from those who agree. 10. It is recommended that you keep notes on your tasting experiences, simply because tasters are more likely to recall a recorded experience. Taking notes is a discipline designed to bring out the best in each taster and enables one "to look back" at all the wines that excelled in tastings, especially as one's taste changes over time. And, change it will. Most tasters start out impressed by, and liking, big, powerful, intensely flavorful wines. Over time, the pleasures of more elegant, restrained, subtler wines are likely to take precedence over more powerful extroverted wines. Naturally, this varies from one person to the next. 11. You can conduct an at-home tasting using one of two methods: (1) All participants are able to see the labels and know the sequence of the wines in advance, or (2) The "blind" method, where the wines are placed in bags and numbered before tasting. The tasters know the names of the wines or where they come from, but, in the tasting sequence, they do not know which is which. 12. One of the most exciting ways to conduct an at-home tasting is to serve the wines first in pure tasting format--no food, except some bread. Select neutral bread, such as baguette. Stay away from strong olive or seed flavors. Afterward, serve the same wines with food, something relatively straightforward. Fish and shellfish are wonderful with Chardonnays. Make sure that the preparation of the fish does not contain too many spicy ingredients. They will alter the flavor of the wine and can make assessment more difficult. You and your guests may discover that the wines you liked best when tasted alone are not necessarily the wines you like best when tasted with food. 13. Ultimately, it is how certain wines pair with certain foods that serves as the basis for the wines selected. While it is fun and instructive to taste wine by itself, in the final analysis, wine is almost always drunk with food, and it is how a wine tastes with food that determines its appeal. Nonetheless, it's not absolutely necessary to serve food after the tasting. It's perfectly possible to conduct a successful tasting without food, however, the combination of a tasting followed by dinner accompanied by the very same wines makes for a pleasurably social and instructive evening. DiscussionAfter the tasting, ask your guests about their experience, and compare it to your own. How did the Chardonnays differ? What did you record in your notebook? How did your tasting experience differ from the experience of your guests with all six Chardonnays? Were there more differences or similarities? What were they? Other At-Home TastingsThe "Varietal Challenge" tasting format can be repeated by featuring any other varietals. Grape types allowing for fascinating regional comparisons include Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Riesling.
Article © 2006, Les Kincaid. All rights reserved.
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