So you are planning on on hosting a wine tasting party? Here are six themes to consider planning your party around. Any one of these is guaranteed to result in greate wine-tasting party.

The first theme we will examine  is called the Horizontal Wine Tasting. In this kind of theme, you will focus only  on one wine variety from a single year. However, each type of wine will come from multiple vineyards and different producers. For example, you can focus on a 2000 Chenin Blanc from five or seven different wine producers or wineries.

Here you can decide whether you would like to taste wines from the same region or you want to mix it up somewhat by tasting the same type of wine that comes from different wineries in different regions, such as from California, Australia or Italy.

The second theme is called Vertical Wine Tasting. Here, the wine tastings are conducted by tasting just one variety of wine. For example, you will only concentrate on tasting the Chenin Blanc from the same producer. However, the wines will be in different vintages or years. This is the vertical part. For example, you can taste the Chenin Blanc from one winery from years 2000, 2002, and 2004.

One of the objectives of this theme is to demonstrate how subtle a wine can change from year to year – an extremely exciting experience for your guests.

Priceless Wine Tasting is another great wine-tasting party theme. People normally assume that wines that are more expensive taste better than cheaper ones. Although this may be true, you can try testing their palate by withholding the price of the variety of wine you have available for tasting. By just tasting, your guests should determine which wine is worth, for example, more than 100 dollars and which one is worth less than 20 dollars.

Price Point Wine Tasting is another great wine tasting party theme that you may want to try. Here, the wines featured will be in a similar price. The goal here is to keep the wines comparable in a baseline price which is quite flexible for you to organize when it comes to buying the wine. The objective here is to demonstrate if the taste change with different price points.

Another theme is called the Big Eight Wine Tasting. Here, you will get your guests to work their way through eight different kinds of wines and determine which one they prefer. This will also give your guests, particular the ones that are not very into wines a new appreciation for the different kinds of wine.

The big eight wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, and Pinot Noir for red wines, and Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Grigio for white wines.

Lastly, the Blind Wine Tasting theme can also work for your party. This is sort of mixing up the prior five themes. Just take any of the themes mentioned before, remove the labels from the bottles or put the bottles in wine bags and you have a blind wine tasting party that will surely be a lot of fun for your guests. The fact that your guests will not have any ideas on what wine they taste,  will definitely make it interesting to know which kind of wine they prefer without looking at the label or at the price of the wine.

Remember, whichever theme you choose you need to plan your party around at least one theme. Sure you can mix and match to suit your taste and circumstances, but having a theme is a great way to reduce stress and guarantee a great party.

Enjoy.

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