How to Host a Blind Wine Tasting Party!

This weekend I celebrated my birthday a little bit early with my friends. We are all pretty big wine-o's and a few years back I threw a blind wine tasting party. It went pretty well and we had fun with it so I decided to do it again, and iron out some of the kinks from the prior party. 

This party was definitely a pretty big hit I think. We didn't seem to have any issues. So I will tell you how to host a blind wine tasting party! 

What you will need: 

- Brown paper lunch bags 

- Sharpie 

- Tasting Sheet for guests 

- Tape 

- Corkscrew 

- Wine Glasses

1) Everyone person brings 1 bottle of wine, designate which price range you like. I said $15

2) Once people have RSVP'd assign them a wine varietal to bring - no blends. for example: adam- merlot, garrett - malbec, stephanie - Syrah and so forth. If you want to do white wine you could also do that as well. For our party we did do some red wine but it was mostly reds.  

3) At the party collect the wine and set them aside, it is ok if people see the bottles since you will be covering them up later. 

4) I made little sheet of paper for people to write their answers down on. 

example: 

Red Wines

1) 

2) 

3).... 

5) Once everyone has arrived make your "answer list" 

Ex: 

Red Wine

1) Malbec

2) Syrah

3) Merlot  

6) Next, get brown paper lunch bags and label them to the effect of Red 1 or R1, White 1 or W1 on the front and back of the paper bags. Once they are in the bags, have someone help you uncork them and set them on your table. (See image below) 

Blind Wine Tasting Party

8) Make sure to instruct everyone to take small pours. If they don't like it then make sure to have the "dump bucket" on the table as well. 

9) Once all the wines are on the table have ever grab a pen/pencil and their tasting sheet. 

10) [Optional] Depending on the skill level of your guests you may or may not do this. For my group I did. I told everyone what types of wines their were and had everyone write them down on their sheet so as they were tasting they could try and guest which wine was which. 

I guess you could let people smell out of the bottles...

11) Once everyone is finished trying the wine, gather around and have everyone pass it to their neighbor to grade. The person with the most right wins! I gave them a prize bottle of wine.  

Let me know if you have questions or if it wasn't clear! We had lot of fun with this and I hope you can now too!