My friends Brette and Sean recently hosted a fabulous party that was all about wine tasting. Everyone brought bottles for blind tasting and the person who brought the winning wine won a bottle of all the other entries as the prize. While this competitive approach doesn’t take into account tasting preferences by tribe, it is a great way to identify crowd pleasing wines and have a lively party.
Given that the party season is in full swing I thought you might want to replicate Brette and Sean’s wine tasting with your friends. Here are the details:
- 20 people (10 couples) attended.
- Each couple brought 3 bottles of the same red wine (under $20).
- 1 bottle was set aside for the prize; the other two were used in the blind tasting (the tasting bottles were covered with paper bags).
- Everyone made notes as they sampled the wines, then voted for their favorite at the end.
- The couple that supplied the favorite wine went home with the 10 bottle prize!
In case you are curious about which wines were sampled and which wine won, here are the wines, their scores and a tasting note on each bottle.
Bottle #1: Manage a Trois Blend – 2 votes (“Could get down on that – good!”)
Bottle #2: Barefoot Cabernet – 0 votes (“Tastes like communion wine.”)
Bottle #3: Robert Mondavi Cabernet – 6 votes (“Best so far.”)
Bottle #4: Gougenheim Malbec – 0 votes (“Bad smell/kinda bland/decent tho.”)
Bottle #5: Bridlewood Cabernet – 6 votes (“TDF! Best wine of the year. Must buy – 97.”)
Bottle #6: Chevalier Chateau Cab – 4 votes (“Oh fudge yes. So far the shit.”)
Bottle #7: Septima Malbec – 0 votes (“Pretty f-ing good. Rivals #6. Who’s gonna win the war?”)
Bottle #8: Red Knot Cabernet – 1 vote (“Full body. Smells like medicine.”)
Bottle #9: Altocedro Malbec – 1 vote (“Chocolately sweet”)
Bottle #10: Hudson Shah Cab – 0 votes (“Tastes cheap. Prob mine.”)
If you decide to replicate this wine party please write in and let us know your winners. Meantime, I am going to run out and get a few bottles of that Bridlewood . . .
