Wine Tasting Night at Home – Experience and Tips for Beginners

We had a wine tasting night for us and friends of us lately. The night included blind tasting of wines, some tasty cheese, fruits, a bit of bread and other snacks and great people. After my experience you can find plenty of tips how to plan your own wine tasting. There are also links to scorecards and other stuff you might need! I hope you enjoy! 🙂

Above: the wines

Wines we taste:

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1. Sparkling: Freixenet Cordon Negro Cava Brut, Spain, around 10€/bottle
This one was everybody’s favorite. Nice taste, quite acidic but not too acidic. Also tastes a bit sweet even thought the etiquette(???) of the bottle told it’s Brut that means dry sparkling wine. I’ll definitely buy this one again!
Stars: 4.5/5

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2. White: Le Cardinal Cristal, France, around 10€/bottles
This French semidry wine is an interesting  combination of Savignon and Semillon grapes. Nice tropical smell but the taste (and especially aftertaste) didn’t match the smell. Bitter aftertaste kind of ruins this one. My friends retried that at the end of the tasting and told it had become better after being opened in room temperature for a while. They said it wasn’t as bitter at that point.
Stars: 2/5

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3. Rose: Thandi Shiraz Rose, South Africa, about 10€/bottle
Nice and balanced rose. Some raspberry and cranberry at the taste. Extra plus for super cute and beautiful bottle (perfect for summer time picnic!) This one is also fair trade wine. Really nice find!
Stars: 3/5

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4. Red: Argento Selection Malbec, Argentina, about 10€/bottle
Beautiful cherry color. Some cherry and oak at the taste. Mediocre amount of tannins. Good but not outstanding overall.
Stars: 4/5

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Foods we had:

– Strawberries, pears, apples, grapes
– nut & raisin mix, unsalted
– some wheat and rye crackers
– dark chocolate
– cheese: Aura bluecheese, Valma white cheese, some local hard cheese, pepper cream cheese, tomato cream cheese

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How To Host Your Own Wine Tasting?

What you need:
– 3-6 different wines
– paper bags if you want to do blind tasting
– number tags for the wines (print from here)
– review sheets / scorecards (print them from here)
– maybe a tip sheet for reviewing wine if you have first timers
– some snacks that match the wines, like cheese, bread, fruits, etc

Tips:
– do a perfect and balanced cheese plate (Click for my previous post)
– pair cheese and wine by choosing more acidic wine for more fatty cheese
– print simple scorecards and numbers for the bottles from here (click), very simple and easy ones for beginners, if you want to go more professional try these (click)
– tasting order: sparkling, white, rose, light red, bold red, dessert

Photo from here(link)

– remember to ask for allergies or other food (or wine) limitations
– take a look to some basic wine guide like this (http://winefolly.com/wine-basics-beginners-guide/ ) it helps your learn about wine
– ENJOY