There a million ways for you and your friends to have a wine tasting party - all of the same maker and vineyard, a variety of red wines, taste with chocolate, even do price-point where you choose the best within a dollar range, and of course the main one we all hear - wine and cheese.

Regardless of which tasting theme you choose, make the event a fun, light evening where everyone can experience a bit of culture, even those that might hate wine. If you are like me, enjoy wine but really are not sure what is what in the wine country, then you might enjoy the education and research put in to creating the wine tasting.

Stacy Slinkard, Wine Guide at About.com has some great tips for throwing a top wine tasting party that will sure please all those involved.

Steps

Determine tasting. This is basically choosing the theme of the party - will it be wine with - chocolate, cheese, or all of the same maker. Here is a list of themes that Stacy mentions:

The Vertical Wine Tasting

The Horizontal Wine Tasting

Old World vs. New World Wine Tasting

The Wine and Cheese Tasting

The Wine and Chocolate Tasting

The “Priceless” Wine Tasting

The Price Point Wine Tasting

The “Big Eight” Wine Tasting

Guest List: Well, your tasting wouldn’t be the same if you are alone. Create your list with friends and family in mind. You might even want to do a tasting within a new neighborhood maybe to break the ice so to speak. Do your inviting informal by calling up friends, or go a bit formal and send invites. You can pick up simple invitations at almost any discount store and mail them out to friends. Include the party theme, date, time, a bit on what is planned, etc.

Scoring cards: This is the point of the wine tasting, letting your guests determine the best, or worse, wine of the night. Here are links to two forms that can be printed and ready for your guests offered through Wine Country Getaways - Wine Score Sheet, Blind Tasting Score Sheet, and the Glass Placement for the blind taste test.

Blind taste: This is the challenge for the evening. After all wines have been tasted, offer each person the blind taste score card and then offer each person another taste of the wines, without letting them know which is which. Once each has the opportunity to taste the wines and evaluate each, determine the person with the most matched wines and offer a prize. Keep with the theme, offer a prize about wine or perhaps even a bottle of wine.

More great tips offered at About.comfrom Stacy Slinkard, Wine Guide:

• work dry to sweet with white wine
• work light to fill-bodied with red wine
• start young to older wine
• 2oz of wine per glass per wine per tasting
• offer a variety of breads and water to cleanse pallets

Now, don’t forget to go shopping and pick up the goodies based on the wine theme party you are having. Once you have the goodies in place and the friends arriving, what to do now? Enjoy and please be responsible!

Take a look at our Dinner Party too!

This is an original Simple Home Basics post.