Wine Tasting Parties

Drinking wine has gained immense popularity in the recent years. This is because of a declaration made by the medical community that drinking red wine in moderation has innumerable health benefits, such as lowering risk of contracting heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer and cataracts. This had made wine parties quite popular as well. At the same time, hosting wine tasting parties is the best way to socialize with your old friends and have some high-quality wine. In case you want to throw one such party at your place, go through the following lines.

How To Host A Wine Tasting Party

The first step for any party comprises of sending invitations. The appropriate number of guests for a wine tasting party ranges from 8 to 12. Send the invites at least a few days prior to the party. You can either write an email or send written invitations. The party invitation should reflect its theme. Therefore, make use of clip arts that depict people sipping glasses of wine.
The next step is to choose wine for your party. This is very crucial step, because the entire party is focused on tasting the beverage. You can choose wine from different wineries or can even select different vintages of the same wine. Choosing different vintages of the same wine is termed as vertical tasting. This might turn out to be a costly affair, as older wines are generally sold at steep prices.
You can also go for horizontal wine tasting. In this case, the focus is laid on wine varietals from a single year; make sure that the producers of the beverage are different. This is a nice way to get acquainted with different tastes of the same product.
Pairing wine with cheese is a very old custom followed in wine tasting parties. To make it even more interesting for your guests, try out different combinations of wine and cheese. This will give you a broad idea about the influence of a particular cheese on a particular wine.
Pairing the right wine with the right chocolate can do wonders to escalate the party mood in your guests! Make sure that the wine you are serving is as sweet as the chocolate complementing it. The best bet would be to pair light flavored chocolate with wines that have low alcoholic content.
The quantity of wine is also important while making the purchase. When you buy wine for your party, keep in mind that for tasting purposes, each pour has to be precisely two ounces.
Place pitchers of water for your guests, to let them rinse their glasses or cleanse the palate between tasting.
Some people like to spit out the drink rather than swallowing, to prevent themselves from the dose of alcohol. Therefore, make sure to have buckets available in your venue, for those who want to spit out the wine.
Food is usually the quintessential part of any party. However, for a wine tasting party, food might take a back seat, since it disrupts the taste of the wine, especially when served in between. It is, thus, preferred to serve food at the end of the party. Have unflavored crackers or bread to help the guests have a neutral taste in between the wines.
Last, but not the least, plan party favors for your guests. You can present them with a pair of wine glasses, chocolates, different varieties of cheese or small bottles of wine.

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