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+--- Thread: Ran my first wine party (/thread-18526.html)
- TheEngineer - 02-20-2005
We had an extended wine party at my house yesterday. It was the first one like this that I had put together. I put a list of varietals/types that I wanted for the evening and the guest were asked select one of those and go out and buy one that they liked. They were also to introduce the wine to everyone at the party so this was an all inclusive affair. The only thing that was interesting was that I had expected only 8-10 wines....The final list stood at a list of 16 wines that were going to be sampled by 12 people over the course of 7 hours.
Here is the final list.
2002 Thierry et Pascale Matrot Volnay-Santennots, 1er Cru Controllee
NV Delamotte Champagne Brut, Champagne, Le Mesnil Grand Cru, France
2002 Landmark Chardonnay Outlook, Napa Valley, California, USA
2000 Mission Hill Estate Bottle Chardonnay, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada
2003 Von Buhl Pfalz, Riesling Medium Dry, Pflaz, Germany
2002 Blackstone Winery Merlot, California, USA
1994 Faustino I Tinto Gran Reserva, Spain
2000 Erik Banti Caibatta, Morellino De Scansano, Tuscany, Italy
2003 Cousiño-Macul Cabernet Sauvignon, Maipo Valley, Santiago, Chili
2003 Excelsior Cabernet Sauvignon, Robertson, South Africa
2000 La Fleur de Chateau Bouqueyran Moulis Grand Cru, Moulis, Bordeaux, France
2000 Chateau du Bedat Gironde, Bordeaux, France
NV Alasia Brachetto D'acqui, Piedmont, Italy
2004 Selaks Marlborough Ice Wine Premium Selection, New Zealand
1982 (?) Trevor Jones AA160 Shiraz Tawney, Australia
2000 Silval Vintage Porto, Portugal
NV Cockburn's 10 year old Tawny Porto, Portugal
2001 Chateau de Myrat Sauternes, France.
Some very interesting wines no? We finally cut down on two of them (The Cousino-Macul and the Chateau Myrat) to arrive at the final list of 14.
Concensus winner of the evening was totally unexpected, given our tastes and personal favourites. 2000 Mission Hill Estate Bottle Chardonnay, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Great time had by all, menu matches to follow with the wine in the respective areas.
- Thomas - 02-20-2005
Engineer, I commend you for the friends you have. A nice selection. Not a Yellow Tail among them--unusual.
- Georgie - 02-22-2005
Wow! What a fun party! Great idea!
- Thraz - 02-22-2005
Engineer, it sounds like it was a success. Did you give everybody a budget or was the price of the bottle everyone would bring up to them? In hindsight, whichever way you did it, would you do it the same way again? Just trying to get some pointers in case I follow your example. Also, were the guests all people that you already knew enjoyed wine? I don't think I can round up 10 friends in my area that I know really enjoy wine, but maybe it's an opportunity to spread the good word.
[This message has been edited by Thraz (edited 02-22-2005).]
- TheEngineer - 02-22-2005
Actually, it was pretty simple.
I knew that I wanted between 8-10 wines for the tasting and I have some friends who are very experienced wine people and some who have never bought a bottle before in their lives.
I establish a list of varietals/types that I wanted them to bring. I separated the varietals into ten groups which went from light white to heavy white and light red to heavy red, desserts and asked them to pick one of the groups and one of varietal/type within that group (i.e. one of the groups could have been icewine, TBA, Sauternes, late harvest Rieslings and they could have picked a Sauternes to bring)
For those that are familiar with wines, they would immediately pick the ones they liked and for those that did not, at least this would give them some structure and they would not be overwhelmed when they went into a store. No real pricing was set so we got a good representation of wines from most reasonable pricing categories. A prize was set for the best wine and best QPR wine, though that ended up being one and the same.
Those that needed help were pointed in the direction of a few stores within the Boston area and were asked to speak with the staff (something that they need to get use to anyways). They then let me know what they were bringing so that I had a chance to prepare the food pairings. Only half got back to me but because I at least know what group they selected, then I had some reasonable guesses.
The party was kicked off with a wine 101 discussion for what everyone was about to embark on. What they were looking for in each wine. I prepared a scoring book for all so that they can keep track. All participants were given a couple of minutes to discuss what they brought just prior to serving. They also lead the discusson on the wine to the extent that they were comfortable. This way, it made the involvement part of the fun! All wines were scored together and discussed together.
We had a blast! We were really careful about pace and made sure that the food was part of the process. Then the wines were served with the food pairings. All people helped to cooked, or helped prepare or helped to wash even. This added some spacing between bottles and since the foods were really simple, the spacings were something like 15 minutes of blank space at the most.
So a group with varying levels of knowledge about wine all had a good time and were able to leverage the knowledge of those in the know and everyone learned something in the process.
- wondersofwine - 02-22-2005
It's sounding better the more I read. Leave it to an engineer to provide some structure to the tasting. At the wine tastings I've hosted I also encourage people to write down a score and/or notes for each wine to remind them what they liked or disliked about that wine. I've explained the UC-Davis 20-pt. scale but most are happier coming up with their own scoring plan whether it's A,B, C, or based on 100 pts. or just verbal--tasty, yuk!, boring, bitter, wow!, etc.
- TheEngineer - 02-23-2005
If you think that that was structure, you should see how I do my laundry... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
My closests are colour coded in sequence from wavelength (ultraviolet to infared) white then black.
Order makes me happy!