Wine Tasting Themes

When planning a wine tasting party, fun wine tasting themes can turn your event into a much more interesting and organized affair. Thou it may not be obvious to wine beginners, there are many styles of wine tastings. Designing your party around one of these themes makes it more fun and entertaining for your guests.

When we started getting into wine and entertaining our events were a bit haphazard. Sure, they were fun! With a bunch of people drinking wines and some good conversation how could they not be? But with a bit of planning and creativity they can be so much more. They can be educational, they can be surprising and enlightening, and they can be hedonistic and they can even be intellectual. Without wine tasting themes or structure a wine tasting can loose focus with individual people carrying on their own conversations, drawing attention away from the central attraction, the great wine you are drinking! So get creative and find ways to keep your guests' attention and keep them focused on the wine.

Below are links to several articles with ideas for wine tasting themes. Get imaginative and turn your next wine tasting party into an event to remember!

• Dinner Party Theme
  What is wine without great food to compliment it? The theme here can be wine and food pairing ideas, comparing how certain wines go with certain dishes. Alternatively, it can be centered around a certain style of food which pairs beautifully and classically with certain types of wines. Also see our Themed Wine Dinner Party notes page which includes examples of wine dinner parties we have attended which pair a certain region's wines with their traditional cuisine.
• Blind Wine Tastings
  Blind tasting wines, with the wine and vintage hidden from the tasters, is an educational and often humbling experience. There are many ways to make this type of tasting interesting and fun. You'd be surprised how differently people assess wines when they don't know what they are tasting ahead of time!
• Vertical (by Producer) Wine Tasting
  A vertical wine tasting is a theme which pairs several of the same wine, from the same producer or vineyard, across several different vintages.
• Horizontal (by Vintage) Wine Tasting
  A horizontal wine tasting is a wine tasting theme which pairs several wines from the same vintage in order to get a feel for the characteristics of wines from that vintage in a given region.
• Grape Varietal Theme
  All wines are made from various varietals of grapes. For example, a Cabernet wine tasting might focus on wines from around the world all made from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. There are so many varietals out there that this theme can be used in many ways!
• Wine Tasting Based on a Wine Region
  Generally, classic wine regions produce a similar style of wine throughout the region from similar grape varietals. Tasting through several different wines from a given region can be very educational and teach you a lot about that region's style. You can also make the whole feel, decoration and food of the night reflect that of the region. A great example is a Provence wine tasting, evoking the sights, aromas and flavors of the South of France. We also have example tasting notes from some of these regional wine dinner parties.
• Wine Scoring Party
  Get your guests involved and set up some games to facilitate discussing and rating the wines! Hand out a score sheet, ask each guest to prepare a comment about each wine, you'll be surprised by the responses and how they vary.

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