Wine Ratings

This is one of my favorite get togethers to hold. It is always entertaining and the results are different every time. Plus, everyone, and I mean everyone always has a great time. And the best part, you don’t need anything fancy or expensive to hold this wine tasting.

This Wine Tasting’s Overview: Basically you are going to create “standards” for possible elements in a wine (peppery, buttery, jammy, etc). Your guests will smell each one, then smell the wine they are tasting and make notes. At the end, they will have professional style wine tasting notes that they can take home with them.

Here is what you will need to hold the wine tasting:

1. Decide if you will be holding a white or red wine tasting (you could do both, but I don’t suggest it)
2. Pick the folks who you will invite. Don’t let people say “Oh, I don’t know anything about wine”, tell them that’s what this tasting is for. For good friends to have fun and learn a little about wine. Tell each friend to bring a bottle of (red or white) wine.
3. Buy a cheap, cheap, huge jug of wine (as unadulterated as you can get).
4. Get about 6 spice jars with tops, I use these: . You can pick them up at bed bath and beyond for around $1 a peice. You don’t have to use these, anything tall, slender and that has a cap will do. I just find these perfect, and at a buck apiece you can’t go wrong.
5. Get a copy of an “aroma wheel”. For your first even, just print out the one here (use a color printer if you can). However, after you find out how fun these tasting are, you will want to get 1 or 2 that are not easily destroyed. You can get one from Amazon here. You can get here : Wine Aroma Wheel. You will use this wheel to help identify the different scents and totrain your nose. Plus it is a very nice reference for your guests
6. Go to the grocery store and get:
   For Red Wine tasting:
   • 1 green pepper
   • Butter extract (liquid)
   • Vanilla extract
   • Strawberry jam
   • Almond extract
   • Cloves
   • Black pepper
   • Index cardsFor White Wine tasting:
   • Butter extract
   • Peach juice (or peach puree from blender) you will only need a small amount
   • Clove
   • Orange and grapefruit juice (small amount mixed together)
   • Bell pepper
   • Canned asparagus
   • Index cards
7. Next you will create your standards. Just before your guests arrive or I do it when the guests are there. I find it a fun way to start talking about wine, and it helps people who don’t know each other get to know each other with out the “pressure” of small talk
   • In each spice jar, fill it ¾ with your base wine (the cheap jug wine)
   • In each filled spice jar, add one item from the list above. Add a small amount, a few drops or a tiny piece of the ingredients. Smell and each one, to see if you can get the aroma. Make sure it is not too strong. Put the cap on each one. LABEL EACH ONE
   • For the green pepper, place a slice in, and then set the timer to about 5 minutes. Then take it out. (See if you can smell the green pepper without the pepper in there, if you can’t leave it a little longer). Be sure to set the timer, because you will get distracted.
8. Put the index cards out (and some pens) for your guests to use.
9. Open the wines that the guests bought
10. Lets guests choose their own wine to pour. (Oh yeah, you may want to purchase some wine charms so that people can tell which glass is theirs.
    • Wine charms Wine Charms

    Now here comes the fun:

    • Have each guest write on one note card the name of the wine they are tasting.
    • Then have them sip their wine for the intial impression. And then at their leiseure, have them pick up one of the spice jars. Have them smell the jar, and then their wine to see if they can smell that element . This will help train the nose. (You will hear people say, oh yeah, I can now smell the pepper in that one).

    As they discover each element have them write it down on the card. Then when they are done, have the rate the wine and write it on their card. They now have their very own professional tasting notes for each wine.

    Most wine tastings, people just taste, and make a guess as to what they smell (there is nothing wrong with this). But for folks like me who never smell anything in the wine, this type of tasting helps immensely. There are several things that this type of wine tasting accomplishes:

    1. It helps people train their nose
    2. It helps people understand what “pepper” smells like in a wine
    3. It helps people easily identify what they like and don’t like in a wine

    Also, big point of note, as your guest make comments about the wine, and what they like and what they don’t like. I always make notes on my own cards, for instance “Jenny really likes “jammy” but not “spicy”. And then I use these notes to help me decide which wines to buy them as gifts. I find that I am often the “go to” person in the office for this thing. Do you know what kind of wine Kevin would like? I SURE do

    ENJOY.
    I hope you have as much fun with this as I do. If you hold one, please post your experiences.

For those looking for a nice summer wine that is affordable. You may want to check out Columbia Crest Grand Estates.

This is one of my favorite wines ever, especially for an everyday table wine. A bottle of it is usually found at my house. This is a super oakey chardonnay (I know a lot of people poo poo oak, but I love it).

It is typically found for around $9-$10 on the West coast, and $10-$12 on the east. Many chains often have it on sale. I have seen it at CVS for $7.99 and Fry’s for $6.99 in the past month. If you see it at either of these prices, snatch a bottle up and try it.

On the east coast, the cheapest I have ever seen it is around $8.99. Oh yeah, make sure you get the “grand estates” (yellow gold label) and not the regular (greenish label)