Blind Wine Tastings - How to Plan and Host One

Do you think you could tell a Chardonnay from a Sauvignon Blanc without knowing which glass held which wine? How about a Pinot Noir from a Cabernet Sauvignon? Or how about a really easy one – a white wine from a red wine if you couldn’t see the color of the wine in the glass? Welcome to the fun and oftentimes frustrating world of blind wine tasting!

There are many different ways to learn about wine, and I have utilized them all over the years. I’ve read books on wine and subscribed to wine magazines. I’ve taken on-line and in-person wine education classes. I've visited wineries all across the U.S. And of course, I’ve sampled and tasted thousands of wines over the years, because one of the best ways to learn about wine is to drink it!

But if you really want to challenge yourself and accelerate your wine education, participating in blind wine tastings is one of the most effective ways to do so. Blind tastings are focused on sampling wines without knowing key features of the wine. These can include variety of the grapes, country or region of origin, the terroir of the wine, and the winemaking style to name just a few.

Blind wine tastings are usually tailored for the audience based on their level of wine knowledge. For example, some blind tastings focus on wine education for wine novices and oftentimes include “paired” tastings where two different wines are poured side by side, and enough information on each wine is provided to the taster so they provide an informed guess on which wine is which. One example would be a paired wine tasting that includes an oaked and unoaked Chardonnay; another would be a paired tasting that includes a French Bordeaux blend and a Napa Valley red blend.

For these tastings, the bottles and labels are covered, and any relevant information on the wines is shared with the tasters before they sample the wine. For newbies, that information will be robust to provide enough clues for them to try and distinguish between the different wines. For wine experts, the information will be minimal or even non-existent. Either way, the goal is for the taster to evaluate the wine using sight, smell, and taste to discern what wine they are drinking in each glass.

The most rigorous blind wine tastings are done using black glasses so all obvious clues as to the type of wine are eliminated. You might be thinking, “why would you need to do that? Of course I could tell a white wine from a red wine!” Well, you would be wrong. When a red and white wine are tasted blind side by side, served at the same temperature, and the color of the wine can’t be discerned, you would be surprised at how difficult it can be to determine which is the white and which is the red wine (trust me, I’ve gotten it wrong more than once)!

Blind wine tastings are really a lot of fun and truly educational as well, even for wine experts. And planning and hosting a blind wine tasting is easy to do. First, decide who you want to invite – I’d recommend choosing a group with similar levels of wine knowledge.  Second, pick a theme for the tasting. This could really be anything you’d like to do, but here are a few ideas to get things started:

• Different varieties of wines (i.e., Pinot Gris vs. Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir vs. Syrah, etc.)

• Different varieties of wine from different countries (i.e., paired tasting of Chardonnay’s from France and the U.S.)

• Different styles of wine (i.e., oaked vs. unoaked wines, young vs. older aged wines)

• Different regions for the same variety of wine (i.e., paired tasting of a Pinot Noir from Oregon and California, or a paired tasting of Chardonnays from the Chablis and Cote-de-Or regions of Burgundy in France)

Next, select the wines for the blind tasting. I’d recommend picking 6-8 wines at most (or 3-4 paired wine tastings) – any more than that and the tasters will likely start getting “palate fatigue” (which means all the wines start tasting alike) as time goes on. Here’s where talking to a wine expert can help ensure your wine selections are appropriate for the theme you have selected, as well as for the level of knowledge of the tasters. For example, if you are doing a paired oaked and unoaked Chardonnay tasting for novice wine drinkers, you want to make sure the two wines selected really showcase the characteristics of each of those styles of Chardonnay. For expert wine drinkers, you’ll want to select two Chardonnays where the differences exist but are much more subtle to make it more challenging for the tasters.

You will then need to write down some notes for the tasting that you will use to help explain the tasting theme and provide the information you want to convey about the wines to help the tasters distinguish between the two without giving the answers to them! For example, if you are paring a Sauvignon Blanc with a Chardonnay in a blind tasting for wine novices, you’ll want to describe the basic characteristics of each that the tasters should be looking for (i.e., for Sauvignon Blanc, descriptors like grassy, citrus, grapefruit, and lean & tart; for Chardonnay, descriptors like full bodied, tropical fruit, vanilla, and oak). For more experienced wine drinkers, you might just tell them the most basic information (i.e., one is a Bourdeaux red blend from France, the other is a red blend from Napa Valley, or one is a Left Bank Bourdeaux and the other is a Right Bank Bourdeaux wine).

You’ll want to have at least two wine glasses for each taster, as well as a pitcher of water to rinse out the glasses after each paired tasting and a “dump bucket” to pour out the water and any wine they don’t want to finish.

Finally, you’ll want to make sure to have plenty of water and bland crackers or bread that the tasters can use to cleanse their palate during and between paired tastings. This also helps to slow down the palate fatigue effect I mentioned earlier.

In my next blog post, I’ll tell the story of two of my most memorable blind wine tastings and what came of them. Until then, let me know if you’d like help in planning your own blind tasting – my services are free of charge!