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Essential Wine Tasting Supplies For A Self Hosted Event

Wine tastings can be quite detailed in format, more so than a beginner might think. If you’ve ever been to a free wine tasting at a local wine shop or at a restaurant then you may not see everything that goes into the set up. With the right list of items you can easily set up your own home wine tasting for you and a few guests or for several hundred people given your budget. Take a look at the wine tasting supplies you’ll need and figure out which items will work best for your tasting. You might not have to get all of them, but if you do, you can use the wine tasting bargains page to find great deals.

Depending on the number of wines you will serve, you will need a table. It is preferred to have one that you can stand on one side of while pouring wine for your guests. A folding table works perfect for this. It doesn’t have to be very big, maybe four to six feet in length. You want to be able to spread your wines out in flight fashion with the labels facing the crowd and have room for all the other wine tasting accessories that you will need quick access to.

From a professional standpoint, you’ll want a light colored table cloth for the table. Preferably white. The room should also be bright for this event. The purpose of the white table cloth is to allow as much light into the wine so that your guests can see the color of the wine. This is a crucial part of wine tasting.

Of course to see the color of the wine, you’ll need wine tasting glasses. One person is fine, even if you taste both reds and whites. Make sure the glasses are bulbed with stems. You can use plastic wine tasting glasses if need be, to save money.

To pour the wine you must be able to open the bottle and for this you will need a reliable wine opener, sometimes called a wine key. These can be difficult to use for beginners but after opening three or four bottles you will get the hang of it.

Because it is a wine tasting event and not a wine quaffing event, you will need dump buckets. These are for guests who have leftover wine in their glass and need to pour it out to make room for the next wine to be tasted. Guests sip enough of the wine to fill their mouth and then spit it out. This gives them a sensation of the flavor profile of the wine. Also, many tastings go through several wines. If your guests drank each one, you’d have a drunk crowd on your hands.

To rinse glasses between samples, a little water is needed. Have a few water carafes available. Also, some guests may want to rinse their mouths, so having water glasses available will help as well.

Have proteins and other pallet cleansers ready. Sometimes a particularly potent wine will require the mouth to be cleansed before tasting another wine so that the flavor profiles don’t overlap. Cheese is a perfect source to cleanse the pallet because the protein in cheese will create saliva in the mouth. Small crackers will work for lighter wines.

Supply a wine tasting sheet and pencil for everyone attending. Sometimes guests want to take notes on the wines being tasted. Some guests may have their own wine tasting journals, but for others it’s good to supply note cards to jot down details of the wines. You could also invest in a wine tasting score card for each guests if you want to have your group rate the wines.

That’s your list. There are other things you could include of course for more detailed tastings. For example, with blind tastings you would need bags to cover the bottles and wine tags to number each wine. But for a basic wine tasting for beginners those are all the wine tasting supplies you will need.

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