Key Points to Organize the Best Wine Tasting

If you are a wine lover, definitely you are familiar with one of the most popular activities: wine tastings. Next, you can see the key points to consider in organizing this type of event:

1. Time: Preferably before meals; at 11:00 or 18:00
2. Place: No parasitic odours (cooking, tobacco smoke, perfume); use tablecloths or a white table to facilitate visual view.
3. Light: Daylight is ideal, but if electric light is used, normal bulbs are better than fluorescent lamps.
4. Perfume: Although it is hard to be controlled, it is recommended to advise attendees in advance to avoid using perfumes as they alter the olfactory perception of wine.
5. Decantation: It is necessary to decant red wines with grounds to eliminate, or simply to air them if they are produced with fewer years.
6. Presentation: Serve the wines at the appropriate temperature. For “blind” tastings, you will have to hide the bottles and give them a number.
7. Order: There is no perfect order, but, in principle, whites go before reds, dry ones before sweets, light ones before concentrates and simple ones before complex ones.
8. Cups: the standard cup is called AFNOR; but if it is not available, you can use any cup that meets the minimum requirements for a proper tasting. It takes one drink per person for a “standing” tasting and a glass for each wine in a “sitting” tasting.
9. Spittoons: individual containers for “seated” tastings and common containers in other cases, which can be cardboard boxes or wine boxes lined with plastic and filled up to half of the sawdust. It is also correct to empty the wine glass that is not going to be drunk in the buckets.
10. Food: in the technical tastings, toasted bread or breadsticks are usually used (without flavours and with a little salt). By slightly altering the papillae, they are used to clean the palate, as well as water. In the case of tasting pairings, inform the attendees in writing of the various dishes that will be offered.
11. Notes: Provide attendees with sheets of paper and pens for tasting notes in which each wine will be described.
12. Talk: It is recommended that a person is in charge of directing the tasting, explaining the origin of the wines, the elaboration and performing the sensory analysis.