But they're also tremendous fun, especially when you organise your own.
Not to mention a subsidised way to drink some decent wine.
Here's how to do it.
* Suggest it to friends as an informal gathering so that the wine-shy don't feel intimidated. Wine is about enjoyment and sharing it with company: not about arcane knowledge and using the right terminology
* Decide on a variety (e.g.: chardonnay, shiraz-cabernet) to taste
and give participants a rough price range to stick to, so you are
comparing like against like
* You won't need one bottle per person. Only you know how much wine your mates can drink but if you have 10 people coming, 8 bottles should do. Assign nibblies to the others
* Make sure you have alfoil or paper bags on hand to mask the bottles, or use the brown ones the bottles arrive through the door in
* Write numbers or letters on the bags so you can match your findings to the label afterwards
* Have water and crackers available to clear the palate, and I would recommend adding some cheeses to the party as well. The experts would tut-tut as it muddies the palate and masks nuances and faults (ever heard the expression "buy on water, sell on cheese"?) but it makes the night exponentially more fun. Besides, trying wines with food is the real test, isn't it?
* Serve the wines at a consistent temperature to give them a fighting chance, and make sure they're not too hot or cold
* It's easier if participants can taste all of the wines at once, but you'll need a lot of glasses. The alternative is to issue one glass each and taste the wines in order. As you're only pouring splashes into the glasses, there'll always be more left when you need help forming an opinion
* Hand out pens and paper for everybody to keep notes. Maybe you'll find a tasting sheet to use, otherwise give them blank paper and let them form impressions on their own
At the minimum, give your pals some guidelines to look for:
* Colour: How does it look in the glass? Against a white tablecloth? Okay, so colour is something which matters more with aged wine, but it's a good warmup before diving in
* Aroma: It contributes a lot to the taste, but you'd be surprised how different the smell can sometimes be. Swirling the glass helps you get a good sniff - and can also make you look a bit of a wanker
* Taste, obviously: Here's where you can have fun with descriptions. Can you pick a fruit, food stuff or flower it might remind you of? Don't try to ape professional terms you may have read in a wine column or on the back of a bottle - let your imagination take over. Once you get past what it might taste like, try to work out what sort of person this wine would be. As the tasting goes on you'll all become very creative. You are swallowing, right?
* Texture: Does it have body? How does it coat the glass and run down the sides when you swirl? Don't miss your chance to make bawdy comments about the wine's "legs". How does it sit in your mouth or your throat? Does it feel thin or thick?
* And finally, the judgements. Can you pick a favourite? What did you like about it? Did you hate any of them, and why? What similarities did they share? Once you identify these you're on the road to working out what makes a typical shiraz, and so on. Take turns presenting your findings to the group. Argue. Protest. Marvel at the purple prose.
* At last, the unveiling. Produce the bottles from their brown paper sheathes and compare them to your findings. But please - make it non-competitive; don't keep score on who chose the most-expensive bottle. Barring obvious defects, there is no correct response to a wine; even if you don't like the bottle everybody else does, that's the correct response for you.
Best of all, your friends will realise they in fact do have tastes and preferences when it comes to wine. It has been demystified: they can actually discern between different bottles and even find a vocabulary to talk about it.
You might even turn them into wine snobs if you're not careful.
What are your tips for the perfect wine tasting? And what outlandish wine descriptions have your friends come up with?
This post originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.
* You won't need one bottle per person. Only you know how much wine your mates can drink but if you have 10 people coming, 8 bottles should do. Assign nibblies to the others
* Make sure you have alfoil or paper bags on hand to mask the bottles, or use the brown ones the bottles arrive through the door in
* Write numbers or letters on the bags so you can match your findings to the label afterwards
* Have water and crackers available to clear the palate, and I would recommend adding some cheeses to the party as well. The experts would tut-tut as it muddies the palate and masks nuances and faults (ever heard the expression "buy on water, sell on cheese"?) but it makes the night exponentially more fun. Besides, trying wines with food is the real test, isn't it?
* Serve the wines at a consistent temperature to give them a fighting chance, and make sure they're not too hot or cold
* It's easier if participants can taste all of the wines at once, but you'll need a lot of glasses. The alternative is to issue one glass each and taste the wines in order. As you're only pouring splashes into the glasses, there'll always be more left when you need help forming an opinion
* Hand out pens and paper for everybody to keep notes. Maybe you'll find a tasting sheet to use, otherwise give them blank paper and let them form impressions on their own
At the minimum, give your pals some guidelines to look for:
* Colour: How does it look in the glass? Against a white tablecloth? Okay, so colour is something which matters more with aged wine, but it's a good warmup before diving in
* Aroma: It contributes a lot to the taste, but you'd be surprised how different the smell can sometimes be. Swirling the glass helps you get a good sniff - and can also make you look a bit of a wanker
* Taste, obviously: Here's where you can have fun with descriptions. Can you pick a fruit, food stuff or flower it might remind you of? Don't try to ape professional terms you may have read in a wine column or on the back of a bottle - let your imagination take over. Once you get past what it might taste like, try to work out what sort of person this wine would be. As the tasting goes on you'll all become very creative. You are swallowing, right?
* Texture: Does it have body? How does it coat the glass and run down the sides when you swirl? Don't miss your chance to make bawdy comments about the wine's "legs". How does it sit in your mouth or your throat? Does it feel thin or thick?
* And finally, the judgements. Can you pick a favourite? What did you like about it? Did you hate any of them, and why? What similarities did they share? Once you identify these you're on the road to working out what makes a typical shiraz, and so on. Take turns presenting your findings to the group. Argue. Protest. Marvel at the purple prose.
* At last, the unveiling. Produce the bottles from their brown paper sheathes and compare them to your findings. But please - make it non-competitive; don't keep score on who chose the most-expensive bottle. Barring obvious defects, there is no correct response to a wine; even if you don't like the bottle everybody else does, that's the correct response for you.
Best of all, your friends will realise they in fact do have tastes and preferences when it comes to wine. It has been demystified: they can actually discern between different bottles and even find a vocabulary to talk about it.
You might even turn them into wine snobs if you're not careful.
What are your tips for the perfect wine tasting? And what outlandish wine descriptions have your friends come up with?
This post originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.
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