Many people want to learn more about wine, but buying a whole bottle of wine without knowing if you will like it can be a pricey proposition. Maybe that is why wine tasting parties are so popular. For bringing one bottle of wine, guests get to taste many others and find out about new favorites.

The Plan

First draw up your guest list. On a nice summer evening, you can invite as many people as will fit in your yard. That guarantees a lot of wine variety and not a big mess if someone spills their drink. Remember to tell your guests to bring their own glasses if you are expecting a giant crowd. But unless everyone is an aficionado that came specifically to learn about wine, an organized wine testing and evaluation might be difficult.

For a big party, ask everyone to contribute a bottle of wine. If you are providing the venue, you probably do not want to provide all the refreshments too. But if drinking wine, rather than chit-chat, is the point of your party, keep the guest list to connoisseurs. If you have enough glasses at your house for all your guests at the wine tasting, do pick up wine glass charms or something decorative to wrap around the stems of the glasses so everyone knows their own.

Think of a theme for the wines you want to have at your wine tasting. Pick reds, whites, roses, or all wines from a certain country, or even the best wines for under $10 a bottle.

The Setup

A proper wine tasting requires organization. First, get plenty of glasses ready. If you want to be really exact, provide one glass for each wine that each person will taste.

Next, put out plain saltine crackers to cleanse the palette between drinks at the wine tasting. The taste that wine leaves in your mouth to compliment food can skew the flavor of another wine.

To make the wine tasting contest even more interesting, disguise each wine’s label so the guests do not know exactly what they are drinking. Tie a plain white cloth around the neck of each bottle to hide the label. Just mark each one with a number. Provide guests with papers to write their evaluation of each bottle. If you know a real wine snob, imagine his surprise if he gives a $4.99 bottle an excellent rating!