Mark Anthony

Ever got stuck trying to come up with the “ultimate” wedding gift? Well, you are not alone. Each day thousands of people rack their brains trying to come up with unique wedding gift ideas, only to throw their hands up in frustration and buy any of the common wedding gifts being sold out there.

Below are some wonderful wedding gift ideas most people don’t think of that you can use:

1. Gold-Plated Picture Frames - the perfect way to display favorite photos of their special day. Have them engraved with the couple’s names and the wedding date for a treasured memory.

2. Etched Wine Glass - Have their wedding invitation, or other special verse engraved on a glass sculpture. This will be treasured for years to come, and definitely unique. Or, for a little variation, get the actual invitation, and mount it on a glass plate and finish it with matching colored paint.

3. Honeymoon Photo Album - this could be made out of wood, with something like “A Honeymoon to Remember” engraved on the cover a perfect place to capture those wonderful honeymoon memories.

4. Gift Certificates to a spa for the bride and groom are great before or after the wedding. The wedding day is often stressful, so you could offer a day at the spa to prepare them for the wedding day. Or, they could use it just after their honeymoon, as they prepare to resume their regular activities.

5. Keepsake Box - As time goes by, memories begin to fade, and what better and more unique gift than a special box where they can safely store all those precious mementos that become more cherished as the years go by This box is perfect for things like marriage license, special photos, place cards, vows, and all those other special keepsakes that often get lost as time passes.

6. Couples’ Home Spa Kit - As an alternative for the day at the spa, you could give them a spa in a basket, including monogrammed robes, towels, and a few other relaxing items, like candles, bath and body lotions, some romantic music, and even engraved wine glasses accompanied by a bottle of wine for a special evening at home.

Now, who says coming up with the perfect wedding gift idea is hard? The next time you go to a wedding, try picking up any of the above wonderful wedding gift ideas and you would be surprised at how well it works!

About the author:

Mark Anthony is a wine gift enthusiast. He owns many wine-related sites, including Red Wine Secrets, Wine Cellar Secrets and Great Wine Clubs.

New York Micro Brew

Natural or Modern Wine?

I get email all the time asking for instructions on how to make wine “the way they used to” or “the natural way, without chemicals.” I always answer these the same way.

The history of winemaking has largely been one of following techniques that minimized spoilage. A lot of bad batches were made because no one knew how to prevent seemingly spurious spoilage and, to a lesser extent, control oxidation. About 250 years ago, it was discovered that certain sulfurous salts could be used to kill most of the troublesome bacteria and control oxidation that prematurely ruined most wines. From that moment on, winemaking changed.

If you want to make wine like the ancients did, ask someone else. I will not help you turn winemaking back into a game of chance. If, on the other hand, you want to make consistently decent wines from a variety of base materials, stay here and I will show you how.

Their are many ways to make wine. I could write a book teaching you many if not most of the methods, but you would finish the book without finding a single formula or recipe for doing so. Some of you would be thrilled, for you would truly know how to identify, quantify and adjust the many variables involved in making wine. You would be akin to chefs, able to envision, create and adjust as you go without need of recipes or further instruction. But many of you–I daresay most–would be disappointed at not finding simple recipes for making simple wines.

The truth is, most people don’t really want to be chefs. They just want to be darned good cooks. It is largely for them that I have developed this website. But interwoven throughout is the knowledge which, if mastered, will allow them to go on to become chefs. Until they do, I have provided them with hundreds of recipes to guide them in making wines.

Balloon Wine

I also get a lot of requests and questions about a method of making wine using a balloon. I also have a standard answer for this, too.

Many years ago, winemaking equipment was often difficult to come by in large sections of the country. People used a ballon fitted over the mouth of their secondary fermentation vessel in lieu of an airlock. The balloon would be pricked with a small hole from a needle and CO2 formed during fermentation would escape through the hole. When fermentation ended, the balloon collapsed and the hole sealed, preventing oxygen from entering the jug and ruining the wine prematurely. That, at least, is the theory.

In practice, the hole often expanded from the internal pressure and the oxygen still got in. But even when it didn’t, there are still problems with this method. First, the wine can easily take on the taste and smell of rubber from the balloon. While this might not bother you, it might bother those you share your wine with (assuming you share it at all). The wine also tends to absorb more of the CO2 gas using this method, which is okay if you degasse the wine but terrible if you don’t. It’s a matter of taste, but one I will not contribute to. Winemaking equipment is easy to find these days, especially with online ordering over the internet.

Therefore, the only advice I give about “balloon wine” is not to make it. Spend a dollar for a bung (rubber stopper with a hole drilled in it) and another dollar for an airlock and do it right. That’s all I have to say about this method.

How to Use Recipes

Winemaking recipes are, at best, guides. In truth, I cannot know the precise chemistry of the grapes, blackberries, elderberries, apples, or peaches you might use to make your wine. But, having made wine from these bases before, I can tell you how I did it. In some cases the recipes originated elsewhere and in such cases I say so. In all cases the recipes worked and if you follow them precisely you will make decent to good wines. If you make adjustments as needed, you should be able to make very good to exceptional wines.

When I say I cannot know the precise chemistry of the base ingredients you might use, I mean this sincerely. Take strawberries, for example. Strawberry wine can be quite exquisite, but it can also be a huge disappointment. Commercial strawberries at your supermarket are picked 5 to 10 days before they ripen so they can be processed, stored, shipped, distributed, and displayed without rotting before you buy them. They typically are 5-7% natural sugars. Frozen strawberries were picked closer to or at ripeness and were frozen because they would not survive the trip to the supermarket any other way. They typically are 10-13% natural sugars. But if you go to a “U-pick-it” farm and pick fully ripe strawberries, they might be as high as 15-18% natural sugars.

If the recipe calls for “fully ripe fresh strawberries” and you buy yours at the supermarket produce department, yours will contain half the natural sugar that was intended in the recipe. Yours will also contain only a fraction of the flavor the recipe assumes will be present and the wine will suffer accordingly. And even if your strawberries are picked fresh from your own garden, their sugar, acid, pectin, and flavor components could still differ greatly from the strawberries I used because of different soils, average tempterature, rainfall, humidity, and variety of cultivar used. In other words, the chances are good to excellent that your strawberries and my strawberries will certainly be different. How then can the recipes be of any real value?

If you think of recipes as guides and you measure the variables you can, you will naturally find yourself adjusting ingredients to fit your circumstances. Bland fruit will compell you to add more fruit than the recipe calls for, but even this may not be enough if the flavor is really poor. This seems to be the case more often than not with peaches bought at the supermarket. You can usually add a pint of Peach Nectare per gallon of wine to a vigorously fermenting must and improve the flavor immensely. Frozen peach slices also possess greater flavor than most supermarket peaches. So, if the fruit lacks flavor, spike the must with more flavorful base. This may mean changing the character of the wine with, say, nectarines or kiwi fruit or fresh pineapple chunks.

If the must, when being transfered to a secondary, tastes insipid (weak, lifeless, flat), add more acid and/or tannin, as needed. Do this incrementally so as not to add too much — 1/5 teaspoon per gallon of acid blend and 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of tannin. Add them, stir well, then wait an hour and taste again. Repeat additions if needed. If you have an acid test kit, measure the TA and adjust accordingly. See Acidity in Wines for help with acidity.

Many, many of the recipes on this website result in over-sweet or dry, high alcohol wines. There are several reasons for this. First, when the recipes are from another winemaker, I try to be true to their formulation and report the ingredients and amounts of each as published. Many winemakers, especially British winemakers, like to use 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of wine. This is way too much sugar for a 12% alcohol-by-volumn wine. It is better to reduce the sugar to 2 pounds and sweeten the wine later if it needs it. Better yet, let the must sit overnight before the yeast is pitched, then press out a cup or so of juice and measure the sugar with a hydrometer. Not sure how? See Using Your Hydrometer.

Many of the recipes call for using one or more crushed Campden tablets while others do not. Some recipes call for the use of potassium metabisulfite instead. So why is this? Indeed, all recipes should use potassium metabisulfite, but some authors list it and others don’t — even I often leave it out of my recipes because it is just something you should know you should add without being told. It kills almost all wild bacteria and fungus that ride in with the raw ingredients of wine, inhibits the early viability of wild yeast so that your cultured wine yeast can get a head start, and deters the oxidation of wines for a considerable period. But this compound is so strong that only 1/4 teaspoon is sufficient for treating 5 gallons of wine. Campden tablets contain both an inert binding material and an appropriate amount of potassium metabisulfite for treating one gallon of wine. Use crushed Campden tablets, dissolved in a little water, juice or must, for one gallon batches. Use potassium metabisulfite for 5-gallon batches and larger. If you can divide 1/4 teaspoon of the pure compound into 5 equal parts, then by all means use the potassium metabisulfite for 1-gallon batches instead of crushed Campden tablets.

Add the Campden or potassium metabisulfite (pot meta for short) when the fruit is crushed, unless you are going to use boiling water to extract the flavors, color and juices of the base. The boiling water will kill off the bacteria, fungus and wild yeast, but when you rack the wine you should add the appropriate dose of crushed Campden or pot meta. Some of the sulfur in the dose will bind with other components of the wine but some will exist as unbound sulfur in the form of a dissolved gas called sulfur dioxide, or SO2. This gas is the sanitizing and antioxidizing agent. As time progresses, the gas is slowly released into the atmoshere or breaks down and the sulfut in it binds with new components of wine created as the wine develops and ages. Thus, the dose of SO2 must be regenerated periodically. If you add the Campden or pot meta to the must at the beginning, add another dose at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th rackings and just before bottling (it must be added at the same time as potassium sorbate when stabilizing a wine, as the potassium sorbate will not effect the yeast without pot meta being present at the same time). If you add Campden or pot meta at the time of the 1st racking, add it again at the 3rd and 5th rackings and before bottling (when stabilizing the wine). This should be done whether the recipe mentions it or not.

Most of the recipes say to stabilize, sweeten to taste, wait 2-4 weeks, and then bottle the wine. This is very much a normal thing to do, so if a recipe doesn’t specifically say this, do it anyway. Of course, you can NOT sweeten if you’d like. I rarely sweeten my wines, but I still add that step in the written recipe when I post it. “Stabilize” means to add potassium sorbate and potassium metbisulfite (or a crushed Campden tablet) at the same time, stir until dissolved, and then allow the wine to “rest” for 2-4 weeks to see if it referments. It shouldn’t, but if it does you can wait for it to finish — and it will finish because the two potassium salts render the yeast incapable of further reproduction. The potassium sorbate is not listed as a separate ingredient because some folks don’t stabilize their wines and therefore don’t need it, but if you “stabilize” a wine you’ll need 1/2 teaspoon of the sorbate plus a crushed Campden tablet per gallon of wine.

Use the recipes as guides and measure and adjust any variables you can. If you do this, your wines will generally be better and you’ll quickly learn the ins and out of winemaking more thoroughly than if you just followed the recipes.

However, if a recipe says to start fermentation in a primary, do it. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce rapidly, and for the first two or three days rapid reproduction should be all you want your yeast to do. If you start fermentation under an airlock, you are denying the yeast what they need and may or may not have problems. If you do this and have problems, I don’t want to hear about it. If you won’t follow my instructions and your wine doesn’t like it, then take your problems to someone who recommends starting your fermentation under an airlock — or whatever else you are doing differently.

How Much Wine Do Recipes Make?

I am asked this question all the time, although it really baffles me sometimes. I mean, some recipes say to use a specific herb or flower, add sugar and other dry ingredients, and then add from 7-1/2 pints to a gallon of water. Since the herbs contain no juice or other liquid, it shouldn’t be difficult to conclude that the recipe makes about a gallon of wine. I say about because sugar has a volume, some liquid is lost as sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide (a gas), and different yeast’s lees compact differently — meaning that you lose more wine with some lees than others when you rack. However, if you top up as instructed, you should always end up with a gallon.

So, as to the question of how much wine do the recipes make, unless they specifically cite another volume, all the recipes on my site are for one U.S. gallon batches. There are several reasons for this:

I am constantly experimenting with new wines or improving old ones, with approximately 22-30 batches going at all times. One-gallon jugs take far less room than larger carboys.

One-gallon batches are more economical to gamble with, especially when some of the ingredients have to be shipped refrigerated and are therefore quite expensive to me. No one pays me to do this, so if I decide to try cloudberry wine and have to import cloudberries from Finland, I have to suffer the cost. Devising a recipe is therefore a gamble (it might not work) and I try to keep the amount gambled at a minimum.

It is less painful to dump out a 1-gallon batch that didn’t work out than a 5- or 6-gallon one, and I have dumped out a few.

When they do work out, most wines have to be aged for 6 months to a year, and 5 bottles take less room to store during aging than 25 or 30.

For people who want to make larger batches, all they have to do is multiply the ingredients (except yeast) by the number of gallons desired. This is far easier than trying to adjust a 5-gallon recipe to 3 gallons, for example.

So, if you wanted to make a 6-gallon batch of a particular wine, just multiply the ingredients by 6, except use two packets of yeast instead of one (each sachet of yeast is usually enough to start a batch of 1 to 5 gallons in volume).

Topping Up

As for topping up, you have to decide on your own strategy. Some recipes initially make a little more than a gallon (and I mean an American gallon, or 3.7854 liters). I often say to crush the fruit, add the sugar and other ingredients, and then add one gallon of water. Obviously, when the sugar is dissolved and the juice is pressed or squeezed from the fruit, you’ll have more than a U.S. gallon. When you transfer from primary to secondary, it would be nice if you had a jug that would take all of the liquid without overflowing and with exactly an inch of ullage (airspace between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung) — a 4-liter, 4.5-liter (British gallon), or 5-liter jug, for example, might work perfectly. Then, when you rack later and lose some of the volume, you can rack into a smaller jug — for example, from a 4.5-liter jug into a 4-liter one, or from a 4-liter jug into a U.S. gallon jug. But, if you don’t have a variety of jugs such as described here, then just fill a gallon jug and put the excess into a smaller wine bottle of an appropriate size (750-ml, 375-ml, 250-ml, 187-ml, or 125-ml). A #2 or #3 bung will fit these various wine bottle sizes to accept an airlock. You then use this excess wine to top up the gallon jug after racking.

Larger batches require different strategies. For a 6-gallon batch, for example, I would divide the 6 gallons into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug, ferment them side-by-side, and use the 1-gallon batch to top up the 5-gallon carboy. After using some of the 1-gallon batch, I would rack the remainder of it into a 3-liter jug. After topping up during the second racking, I would rack the remaining smaller batch into a 2-liter or half-gallon jug, etc. I have a variety of jugs and bottles that I use for “down-sizing” after using some wine for topping up a larger batch. These include 3-liter, 2.5-liter, 2-liter, 1.90-liter (1/2 U.S. gallon), 1.5-liter, 1-liter, 750-ml, etc.

You can also top up with a finished wine of the same kind or very similar to what you are making. However, if you don’t have a wine anywhere close to what you are making (nothing is quite like pumpkin wine, for example), any similarly colored wine will do.

You can also top up with distilled (or boiled and cooled) water. Many of the recipes use a bit more sugar than necessary just so when you top up with water the alcohol still ends up at around 12% even after being diluted with the water. If you top up with wine the final alcohol content would differ.

Finally, many people simply use glass marbles or glass decorative pebbles to displace the volume of wine lost to racking. I myself have about 3 quarts of glass marbles I use for this purpose with some of my batches.

Necessary Equipment and Supplies

I am often asked for a list of the minimum equipment required to make wine. The list below contains what I think is necessary. If you are not sure what an item is or is used for, look for it in my Glossary of Winemaking Terms.

Primary: 6- or 7-gallon white plastic paint bucket is the best all-purpose primary;

Secondary: 1-gal apple juice jugs, 3-gallon carboys and 5-gallon carboys are best sizes (demijohns in the British Commonwealth);

Bung: rubber corks with hole drilled for the airlock to fit in; buy when you buy a secondary so you know the fit is correct;

Airlock: “S”-type is best (also called “bubbler”);

Hydrometer: with both specific gravity and potential alcohol scales;

Hydrometer Jar: a tall chimney jar (holds about 350 ml of liquid) in which the hydrometer is floated;

Siphon Hose: about 6 feet of 1/2 inch clear plastic tubing;

Acid Blend: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;

Pectic Enzyme: dry, powdered, 2 to 4 oz;

Grape Tannin: dry, powdered, 2 oz;

Campden Tablets: for 1-gallon batches, bag of 25;

Potassium Metabisulfite: crystaline, for cleaning equipment and sulfiting 5-gallon batches (in place of Campden), 4 oz;

Potassium Sorbate: for stabilizing wines (see Finishing Your Wine);

Yeast Nutrient: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;

Wine Yeast: see Yeast Strains for guidance; do not use bread or baking yeast;

Nylon Straining Bag: also called a grain bag;

Corks: size #9 fits most wine bottles; buy quality corks;

Corker: buy a cheap hand corker to start with;

Bottles: you will need five 750-ml bottles per US gallon of wine, six per Imperial gallon.

Advanced Equipment

The following list contains equipment you will want if you become a more serious winemaker. None of it is required, but all of it is nice to have if you develop a need for it.

Gram Scale: digital ones are expensive, but worth the money for making small, precise adjustments ;

Acid Test Kit: replace the standards (solutions) as required and it will serve you well;

pH Meter: accurate, reliable, and worth the investment;

SO2 Test Kit: essential for making serious white wines and reds intended for aging;

Grape or Fruit Press: consider this “essential” if you make wine from fresh grapes;

Crusher: If you do a lot of grapes, you’ll need this; deluxe models come with a destemmer;

Floor Corker: for 5-gallon batches, you really do need one of these;

About The Author

New York Micro Brew

We have been in the wine making industry for over 15 years.

Please Visit www.newyorkmicrobrew.com

Going on a wine tour can be a truly fun, enjoyable and learning experience. There are many locations across the world that offer a wine tour, however you will obviously find more options in a locale which is more prone and popular in the matter of wine growing.

Niagara, for example, is a location where there are plenty of different types of offerings in regards to wine tours. This is because Niagara is not only an area that is rich in tourism, but it is also an area that is prominent in the growing, storing, and preserving of all different sorts of wines, which explains a lot as to the wine tour popularity in this area.

Who Offers a Wine Tour in Niagara?

Grape and Wine Tours is a wine tour company that is located in the Niagara region, and they offer an escape to the wonderful and magnificent Niagara wine country. Here you will be able to discover some of the most incredible wines and stroll through gorgeous grape vineyards. You can even enjoy multi-course meals here, with an entire group of your friends and family, and enjoy the sights of beautiful courtyard settings, bistros with expansive vineyard views, or exceptional award winning winery restaurants.

Some of their most popular tours include that of: Afternoon Delight Tour, which includes an extensive winery tour at one winery, and then wine tasting at three other wineries, and you are even allowed to meet the winemaker if one is so available; Lunch Fiesta Tour, which allows you to enjoy private wine tasting at four separate wineries, as you stop and shop at the winery boutiques of your choice.

This particular tour includes several definitive components, which are: a professional tour guide, pick up at your accommodation, a tour of one winery, a three course gourmet lunch inside of a fine dining or winery restaurant, and wine tasting at all four wineries.

There is also the Best Kept Secret Dinner Tour, which involves wine tasting at three boutique wineries, an extensive tour of which during you learn about the history of wine and a gourmet three course dinner; or, there is also always the option of choosing the gourmet picnic experience, where you can spend a day traveling through wine country with your significant other, and of which there are numerous different options you can choose from, in order to make the experience personalized, and so that you are ensured that you will have the best and most enjoyable time you possibly can.

Donald Saunders

Are you baffled by the huge variety of French wines and completely lost when it comes to deciding which wine will best suit your needs?

Each of the eight wine producing regions of France specializes in producing wine of a particular type and flavor and this simple overview will hopefully make choosing French wines a little easier.

Burgundy

Burgundy wines are produced from the black Pinot Noir and Gamay grapes and from the white Chardonnay grape.

The Pinot Noir is probably one of the world’s oldest grape varieties and is notoriously difficult to grow. It does however produce some of our best wines which are full-bodied and rich and at the same time can be light, soft and velvety. Pinot noir wines often have an aroma of cherries accompanied by a spiciness that is reminiscent of cinnamon or mint.

The Chardonnay grape is a very popular grape which produces light, delicate dry wines with a distinctive but often difficult to describe aroma conjuring up a vision of apples, peaches or lemons.

Bordeaux

The wines of Bordeaux are based upon the related black Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, found particularly in the Medoc district of Bordeaux, and the black Merlot grape.

Cabernet Sauvignon wines improve greatly with age and are often amongst the world’s truly great wines. With age the distinctive blackcurrant aroma of wines from this grape develops overtones of cedar, violets and leather and the wines, which are characteristically deep in flavor, often become smooth and soft.

Wines made from the Merlot grape are very similar to those produced from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape but have a less distinctive aroma and flavor.

If it seems strange that white wines should be produced from black grapes then bear in mind that grape juice, whether from black or white grapes, is essentially colorless and it is the skin of the black grape that gives the wine its color.

Rhone

The grape varieties most often seen in the Rhone valley are the black Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah grapes and the white Muscat grape.

Syrah grapes produce intense rich wines which are almost black in color and which have an aroma that is spicy in nature. The Rhone Syrah grape forms the base for many blended wines including the well known Chateauneuf du Pape

The Muscat grape gives rise to intense, sweet wines with a strong and easily recognized aroma. In addition, and unusual for a wine, wines from the Muscat really do taste of grapes.

Loire

The grapes of the Loire include the black Pinot Noir and the white Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris grapes.

The Sauvignon Blanc grape is grown all over the world today and it is very widely used for blending. In the case of the Loire however it is used to make a distinctive unblended dry white wine with a characteristic sharp and aggressive smell.

Pinot Gris wines often display a slightly floral and lightly lemon flavor and, depending upon the ripeness of the grape at harvesting, wines that are either light and tangy or rich, round and full bodied. Pinot Gris makes one of the few white wines that can be said to age well.

Alsace

Although the grapes of the Alsace are similar to those used in the Loire, growing conditions in this region tend to produce wines which bear the characteristics of many German rather that French wines.

The wines in this region are similar to Riesling and the sweeter German wines. Some rosé wines are also produced in Alsace.

Champagne

The main grapes of the Champagne region are the black Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier and the white Chardonnay.

The wines of the Champagne region can best be described as thin and tart and provide the perfect base for what many believe to be the world’s finest sparkling wine.

Beaujolais

Beaujolais wines are made from the black Gamay and white Chardonnay grapes.

The wines of this region are often light in nature, fresh tasting and with a somewhat fruity flavor. Many Beaujolais wines are also slightly fizzy in nature.

About the Author:

For more information on wine and wine tasting please visit GreatWineTastings.com today. Read more articles by: Donald Saunders

This article is distributed by: www.iSnare.com

People who love wine and everything that it involves find the availability of a wine tasting tour to be a wish come true. Once upon a time this was an expensive and troublesome affair; however today with the popularity of wine growing globally and people wanting to know more and more about this elixir from grapes, a wine tasting tour is not as troublesome to organize as it was two decades ago.

What does it take to have a Perfect Wine Tasting Tour?

In order to have a trouble-free trip, your visit should be planned meticulously and carefully. This will optimize your joy and give you sufficient time to learn and connect with all that you see and hear on the wine tasting tour. So let us see what is needed usually for a wine tasting tour:

Proper planning: Always plan for a maximum of five wineries per day – two in the morning, and two to three in the afternoon. If you go for more, you will lose track of the taste and you will not be able to talk about the wine and find out its history and details. Sometimes, the details make the trip even more charming.

Arrange for a driver: While you are on the wine tasting tour you will need to swallow the wines you taste. This might make you a bit tipsy when you should not have to drive your car. Hence, always have a driver close by just in case you have a bit too much of wine to taste.

Avoid any strong odors: While on the wine tasting tour avoid wearing any strong perfumes or aftershave since any such smell will totally derail your findings on the wine you are going to taste.

Be appropriately dressed: People usually spit the wine out after tasting it. Some have learned to spit without splashing anyone. Hence, you should always wear clothes that can absorb a wine stain; don’t wear white.

By all means spit: According to the society, spitting is found to be a very gross behavior. Hence, many people find it extremely uncomfortable to spit the wine out of the mouth after tasting. Learn to accept that spitting as part of this profession; spitting will also ensure that you do not become intoxicated in the first few hours of tasting.

Follow the above points you will be assured of a fun-filled and trouble free wine tasting tour.

Jerry Powell

There are basically two parts to Wine Tasting, first is ‘What are we looking for’ the second is ‘How are we looking’. We’ll start with the How, and move on to the What.

Traditionally the seven steps to sampling wine are: see, sniff, swirl, smell sip, swish, and spit. This is the process we see tasters going through at the table and in wineries.

The first thing we want to do is see that the color of the wine is good. Put some light behind the glass and look for clarity. Fogginess is a sign we probably want to be careful with. Rusty colors in a white wine are another sign that we probably don’t want to put it in our mouths.

That might seem a bit crass but let’s keep in mind what we are looking at here. The act of Wine Degustation didn’t get its start at high society dinner tables as a way to see what was good with lamb, and what is better with beef. Wine Degustation came into being as a method of deciding what was safe to drink and what might be poisonous due to bad storage or aging processes. While today these tasting methods are less defensive, since modern methods of wine making produce safer wines, some wines you may get to embrace were bottled 100 years ago, or even 200.

Some red wines are so dark you will be lucky to see anything through them, but we still want to take a look. Some of the more obvious signs we want to look for are brown, muddy, orange or other non-winelike colors. It is not uncommon to see bits of cork floating in a glass of wine, just try to make sure that it is cork.

After our eyes are satisfied, we try our nose. Recall that taste is more or less an olfactory sense. With practice we can tell a great deal about a wine from its perfume. A good whiff at the very least will give you an impression, or preview of what to expect from the wine when we taste it. The obvious impressions to look out for are: does it smell like wine? Is the overall fragrance fresh or foul? Anything strange about it?

Our next step, the swirl, enhances our ability to evaluate the first two steps once more. The swirl is to get some of the wine onto the surface of the inside of the glass. Wines are generally not oily or syrupy. The liquid should slide off the side in an expected manner. Also with the wine spread out on the surface, it should be easier to get a better sample of the fragrance it presents. Which is what we do now, but this time we inhale it slowly. No quick sniffs. We bring the fragrance into our nose with a smooth steady inhale, letting our mind go through the stages of the bouquet with a more examining course.

If our nose is still interested then we move on to taking a small sip. Just enough to get a taste on our tongue. You will notice here a bit more of the cautionary tactics in the wine tasting steps, but there is a bit more benefit really than just making sure that we didn’t miss something painful in the previous steps before we commit to a good mouthful. Taking in just a taste allows our mouth to get a quick preview and some expectations. There is also the fact that many concoctions, not just wine, taste a bit different when taken in small sips rather than mouthfuls.

So we are still interested, and by this time we are sure whether or not we want to commit to a real taste, so we take in a mouthful. Not only do we take it in, we swish it around like it was mouthwash, letting the liquid coat every part of our mouths and gums. Allowing the wine to be heated up by our body temperature. Some tasters even gargle a bit with the wine, because our taste buds are everywhere in our mouths.

The last step is spit or swallow. Not much to say about that, but it is a choice to be sure. If this is the only wine or one of two or three you are going to be tasting tonight, swallowing might be an appropriate option. But if you are at a winery and going through 6 or 7 wines, spitting is probably your best option. Otherwise every wine is going to start tasting “swell” and you might as well just have a few glasses rather than try to go through the steps.

What are we really looking for through all of this? There are many aspects of wine, and each vintage and type has its nuances. There are some over all basics though we can start out with.

Oakiness - Some wines have a ‘oak’ flavor. There really isn’t another way to describe it. You have to taste it, but once you do you can pick it out. The flavor is generlly from either from the Aging barrel or oak chips

Sweetness - The process of some wines allows a greater amount of the natural sugars from the grapes (Or fruit) to remain without being processes into alcohol. So a sweetness, and sometimes a fruity taste remains from the amount of residual sugar

Tannin - A wine stressing tannins would be described most of the time as dry. Tannin is the bitterness from seed and skin of the grape and is effected by carbonic maceration and Maceration

Above all, the real test is Did you like it. Your tastes are just as valid as anyone else’s and life is too short for wine you don’t like. Enjoy. About the Author

Jerry Powell is the Owner of a Popular site Know as Gourmet911.com. As you can see from our name, we are here to help you learn more about different kinds of Gourmet food and Wines, Coffees from all around the world. www.gourmet911.com/

If you want to host a fun and easy party at home, what you need is a wine tasting party kit. A wine tasting party kit is available in beautifully packed containers. It contains every single thing one needs to make a wine party successful. There are many brands available in the market and every company supplies everything, except the glasses and the wine.

A wine tasting party kit contains six reusable linen wine bottle covers, tasting score pads, a “cheat sheet” of tasting terms, and wine glass markers. There is a 64 page illustrated book given with the kit which explain in details the art of the swirl, the beauty of the bouquet, and tons of other info about the wonders of wine-tasting. A wine tasting party kit can be given as a gift to a novice or to an expert or to anybody in between.

Many people have described wine tasting party kit as the perfect solution for their party. As per the rule, each of the guests brings a different bottle of wine to the party and the kit provides everything for a unique and exciting evening.

It is not that you will be able to taste only a single variety of wine. A wine tasting party kit emphasizes on mingling, experiencing, and learning about wine. People who have attended such a party have described it as the best possible party they have attended.

Types of Wine Tasting Party Kit Available

Actually, many types of wine tasting party kits are available in the market. Some can accommodate six people, while there are others, which can cater to up to fifteen people. According to the size and the number of features available with the kit, the price of the product varies.

The more expensive ones include features like easy scoring system to determine winners, ready to use scoring cards, game pieces to tally opinions, color award certificates and even pencils and erasers. The sky is the limit and the possibilities are endless.

You can look over the Internet for deals to finding a great kit at a reasonable price. You could choose between a reusable kit if you plan on hosting several parties or a cheaper, disposable kind, which you can just toss in after this event.

If you would have to do it alone, it would take hours of preparation time as compared to if you have a wine tasting party kit, things will become much faster and easier for you.

Many people love to throw a wine tasting party in their homes during early evening hours because it is so much fun. In order to get a good party going you should ensure that the people who attend the party are close to each other, can converse freely with each other and do not bring their kids, unless they can tag along patiently with their parents who will be busy tasting the wine.

Why is the Wine Tasting Party Invitation Important?

Say, you love parties and you need to play the host every now and then to socialize with your neighbors and friends. In order to promote the spirit it would be wonderful if you can throw a party at your place and have the people you want to socialize with over. For this purpose, a wine tasting party is an ideal solution.

The best and first thing about the party is the invitation. The wine tasting party invitation will indicate what type of party it will be – formal or informal, fun or serious. The wine tasting party invitation will also set the mood of your guests accordingly.

Some do’s and don’ts about sending out a wine tasting party invitation:

* Do not send the wine tasting party invitation through the office mail, if it invites the spouse; rather send it to their home. * If you want to have a formal party, add the titles to your guests’ names. Do not write John and Lilly, but Mr. and Mrs. John Doe. * Do not send your wine tasting party invitation at the last moment as this looks like it is an afterthought. Give at least a 24 hours notice though two to three weeks is usually advisable. * Do not send a typed addresses invitation – it looks like it is mass mailed and impersonal. Even have the address label handwritten. * Always print your card on good quality paper. * Do mention the dress code you for the party. * Do mention the theme of the party – if any. * Do mention clearly, if you want your friends to bring along a bottle of wine. You will also have to specify what type of wine and the price range (do not keep the price above $15 per bottle).

Follow these few rules and you are all set to have a wonderful wine tasting party.

Let us say that you have found out that you have been invited to a wine tasting party and you feel mortified by the fact that you know little about wine and wine tasting. There would be some other friends and their spouses and you feel terrible that you have absolutely no clue at what you are expected to do at the party.

You can get the Hang of it Without Much Effort

The first thing that you should to is control your panic. In case you are totally uncomfortable, the best way out for the time being would be to say that you cannot make it to the party. However, rest assured that there is nothing to it and anybody can learn about a wine tasting party in a matter of hours. All you need it a bit of your attention and a clear head.

You can get all the information you need on the Internet. It is easy to go and find out the different aspects that go into making a successful wine tasting party and also what is expected of you as a guest.

Basically, the following details should suffice:

* A wine tasting party involves tasting of wine – as the name suggests – which is done according to certain basic rules to get the accurate taste of the wine * You will need to bring (sometimes) a bottle of wine to the party (the host would mention it in the card or in person if it is expected) * In order to check the quality of the wine, follow the steps listed below:

Check for the color of the wine by contrasting it against something white

Check out during this time, its clarity, color and consistency

Swirl the glass (you have to practice for a few days for swirling properly without spilling a drop out of the glass)

Get the smell that breaks away from the glass while you are swirling – the smell of the wine is also called the ‘bouquet’ or the ‘nose’ – so do not get confused when you hear these terms during the wine tasting party

Lastly, taste the wine and learn about its flavor and how long it lasts in your mouth.

Throw away the wine and spit out the gulp that you have taken in your mouth for tasting (check for the bucket kept specifically for this purpose).

Just read through the above lines a few times, and you are ready for joining any wine tasting party you are invited to. Have fun!

Let us suppose you are surrounded by people who love wine and socializing. Gradually, you will need to be part of the overall scenario and what is a better way to do this, than throw a wine tasting party and call your friends over for a fun-filled evening?

The Basics for Throwing a Successful Wine Tasting Party

There is not much to do or prepare when you are throwing a wine tasting party. Actually, these parties are some of the most easily organized but which provide the participants a good amount of fun and platform for socializing freely. The basics that you will need when you organize a wine-tasting party would be:

* A wine tasting kit – the first and foremost thing you will need is a good wine tasting kit which can make sure that you got everything is needed for the party * You will need white linen for the table * Some cheese or oyster crackers for cleaning the wine taste from the mouth of your guests * A wine refuse basket – some people will have to spit the wine out after tasting it; ensure that there is a proper place to do so, otherwise the person may get drunk without intending to * Good soft music in the background

What Does a Wine Tasting Kit Consist of?

There are many a type of wine tasting kit in the market; there are the very complex ones and very expensive and you have the medium range ones with good but average costing wines. Depending on your budget you could get a wine tasting kit that is extremely expensive or one which is economical and still good. Actually, if you look at it, you can make a good and efficient wine tasting kit right at home.

A wine tasting kit usually consists of:

* Two to three good wine bottles for eight to ten friends. * Pre-formulated cards for review. * Blindfolds so you can taste the wine better. * Wine glasses (large at the bottom and narrow at the mouth). * A few games for adding to the fun (these could be printed on the review cards or different cards). * A guide book for testing wine which has a description of all you need to know when you are invited or you invite someone to a wine tasting party.

Wine is a hot favorite of many people all over the world; being part of a wine tasting party is a beautiful way to spend time with friends. It should not surprise you if you get many wine tasting invitation. Let us suppose that one of your very close friends is hosting a party and gives you a wine tasting invitation for the weekend. What do you do?

Accepting a Wine Tasting Invitation

Whenever you receive a wine tasting invitation or any invitation as a matter of fact, you should consider it before you concede or reject the invitation:

* Did the wine tasting invitation come with sufficient advance notice? * Did the person take the trouble of writing your name correctly? * Did they mention clearly what time the party ends; so that you can be prepared to leave at the appointed hour? * Did they mention the dress code required at the party? * Did they mention whether or not you are required to bring your own wine bottle to the party? * Did the mention the theme of the party?

These are some of the most important aspects that you will need to know about the party that you have been invited at. Check the wine tasting invitation for the details. If it gives all the necessary information, and you have time, by all means inform your host that you are accepting the wine tasting invitation.

However, if you feel that the invitation violated any formal or informal protocol, you may reject the invitation by informing the host accordingly. It may happen that you are indeed busy on that day and you cannot make it to the party. If the person who invites you is close, you can explain your problems in person and express your regrets for not being able to attend. If the invitation is coming from a more formal acquaintance, then you will need to call or send a brief note stating your inability to come.

You will need to ensure that the host receives your acceptance or rejection notice so he or she can make the necessary arrangements at their end. It is highly impolite to simply ignore the invitation and be a no-show at the party. Hence, it is extremely important that you notify your host about your rejection. Not replying will always be taken as confirmation and acceptance of the invitation.

Benjamin Bicais

The Napa Valley is world renowned for its food and wine. Boasting some of the best wineries and restaurants in America, tourists flock to Napa to experience its rustic elegance. Among the small towns that comprise the Napa Valley, Yountville is quickly gaining the reputation as one of the premier destinations.

Founded by George Yount in 1836, Yountville is one of Napa’s most storied towns. Its rich history has provided the building blocks for the success of this bustling community. The combination of fine dining and premium wineries make Yountville a hallmark of the Napa Valley.

The most important landmark in Yountville is also one of the oldest wineries in the Napa Valley. Built in 1870 by San Francisco native Gottlieb Groezinger, Vintage 1870 is now one of the main attractions in Yountville. Today, Vintage 1870 is the central part of an upscale shopping center, which includes high end clothing, galleries, jewelry, fine dining and wine tasting. The Vintage 1870 shopping center is truly a playground for those who enjoy the finer things in life.

The selection of fine dining in Yountville can prove irresistible to even the most reserved of individuals. At the top of the fine dining chain in Yountville is Thomas Keller’s French Laundry. The French Laundry is regarded by many in the restaurant industry as the best in America. In fact, it was actually designated, “the best restaurant in the world,” by Restaurant Magazine in 2003.

If you are able to get yourself on the three month waiting list, be prepared take out a second mortgage to pay the bill. Aside from the price, dining at the French Laundry is pleasure of all senses. The ambiance is unbeatable, the service is impeccable, and the food is a masterpiece of culinary perfection.

Although the French Laundry is the crux of Yountville’s restaurant community, there are many others that have excellent food and service for reasonable prices. Of these, the crème de la crème include Bouchon, Brix Restaurant, Napa Valley Grille, Hurley’s, Bocconcini Cantinetta, Bistro Jeanty, and the Restaurant at Domaine Chandon.

Even by Napa Valley standards, the fine dining of Yountville is unbeatable. But wine is what makes this small town go round. The restaurants in Yountville would not be as successful as they are without the influx of tourists that the wineries bring in. As one of the first regions in the Napa Valley to produce wine, Yountville is a great place to take wine tours.

Located in the heart of the Napa Valley, Yountville enjoys a long, methodical growing season. The weather is moderated by the coastal fog that creeps along the valley floor from the San Pablo Bay. By mid day, the fog burns off, leaving the vineyards exposed to the vibrant rays of the sun. This sun expose makes Yountville well suited for growing Bordeaux varietals.

It is no surprise that the majority of acreage planted in Yountville is Cabernet Sauvignon. These grapes produce restrained Cabs that are not only approachable in their youth, but are excellent when paired with food. They can typically be enjoyed earlier than their northern counterparts.

When deciding which wineries to visit in Yountville, it is important to prioritize your trip around what you want to experience. In my opinion, you cannot go wrong with Cliff Lede Winery. A narrow strip of land just off Highway 29 is home to the winery. The beautiful views from their vineyards pale in comparison to their flagship Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you do not get a chance to visit this up and coming winery, there are several others that produce a wide variety of premium quality wines. Among these, Domaine Chandon produces fine sparkling wines in the tradition of Old World Champagne houses. Their property includes a beautiful vineyard, chateau style winery and restaurant.

Domaine Chandon features a wide array of tours to please all of your senses. Their services ranges from their complementary tour to the all inclusive “Epicurean Experience,” which includes chef selected food and wine pairings along with dinner reservations at their restaurant after the tour.

The tours at Domaine Chandon epitomize the town of Yountville, and provide the visitor the opportunity to enjoy the finer aspects of wine and food. With the number of quality restaurants and wineries in such a small region, Yountville should be at the top of your list when visiting the Napa Valley.

About the author:

Benjamin Bicais lives in the Napa Valley and is the author of several articles about Napa Wine Tours in Yountville.

Marcy Roth

Sausalito , CA - Do you enjoy wine tasting, but dread the long, crowded drive to wine country and the tedious car-hopping from winery to winery? Now you can jump on the ferry to charming downtown Sausalito and experience California’s premium wines at Bacchus & Venus, A Taste of Wine Country. The tasting room, retail shop and art gallery offers wines by the flight, by the glass and by the bottle every day from 11-7ish and later on the weekends. The friendly, knowledgeable staff will walk you through your selection of wines, or stroll upstairs to sip your Cabernet while enjoying the art and the view of the Bay and harbor. Proprietor Marcy Roth aims to feature the wines of ten exceptional California wineries; the roster currently includes Cakebread, Domaine Carneros, Duckhorn, Grove Street, Miner, Quintessa, Rosenblum, Schramsberg, Silver Oak, and Starry Night. “By focusing on a select group of premium wineries, our staff is better able to tell the story of each of the wines - the winemaker’s philosophy and techniques, the interesting aspects of the terroir of the vineyards where the grapes were grown, even which foods pair well with each particular wine. Plus, we are able to offer wines that are made in small lots, highly allocated, and hard to find.” Shipping is offered overseas and to all 50 states. With four tasting menus to choose from, there’s something for everyone. The Beginner’s Flight includes two ounce pours of two white wines and two reds, while the Summer Quencher is comprised of all chilled wines, including a bone-dry Rose and a sweet Late Harvest Dessert Viognier. Bacchus & Venus is unusual in that they offer tastes of the highly allocated and hard to find wines, including some library wines. Wine and food pairings are offered on the weekends and the two-floor bar and gallery is available for private parties. A schedule of wine classes will be posted on their website www.bacchusandvenus.com and in the local papers. Bacchus & Venus is located at 769 Bridgeway (home of the Bottle Shop for many years). It’s between the No Name Pub and the Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa at the intersection of Excelsior. Phone 415-331-2001. Hours: 12 - 7 weekdays, 12 - 9 weekends. www.bacchusandvenus.com About the Author

Marcy Roth fulfilled her longtime dream three years ago when she opened Bacchus & Venus, a wine tasting room and art gallery in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area town of Sausalito. She appears as an expert in the DVD “Wine Fundamentals” and has published several articles on wine appreciation. www.bacchusandvenus.com/trade_press.html

Wine tasting holidays are very popular in Europe. Many travel agencies organize wine tasting holidays in different regions of the continent. A wine tasting holiday program of a reputed agency would include superb champagne weekends, wine tours in Chile, South Africa and New Zealand, gourmet holidays, vineyard walks, luxury wine cruises and exciting new tours.

Wine tasting holidays are great and bring a wonderful experience to your and your travel partners; you will enjoy special visits to cutting edge wineries, have a private tasting at top chateaux and even be invited into growers’ cellars and discover many varieties of great wines.

You can meet the winemakers and the owners of great chateaux, enjoy gourmet food and have superb tastings. You will not be able to experience these excitements if you visit these wineries alone as a person. Wine tasting holidays in different countries gives a unique experience. If you go for a wine tasting holiday in France, you will find unique experiences which you not find if you visit a similar place in Italy.

If you go for a wine tasting holidays in France, you will taken for a ride in the French vineyards of Bordeaux, Rhone, Burgundy, Alsace and Provence. You can take the tour in different forms. You can take the ride in a chartered bus, or in a private luxury car or a cruise, and the cost will vary accordingly.

It is better to have a Wine Guide

The operators generally provide a wine guide with the party. These people are generally very friendly and approachable. They know quite well that in a party there will be all levels of excitement and interest. If you do not know the region well, it is always advisable to take the help of a wine guide in a tour.

A good wine guide in a wine tasting holiday can tell you the inside story, the gossip, the real history, the run down on the vintages, the producers and the wines, without the PR, the sales pitch or national chauvinism. If you come back without knowing the details of these places, what is the point in spending so much money and going for wine tasting holidays? If you know the details of the region, you can feel the place.

The price of wine tasting holidays depends on which region you are going to travel and make sure to confirm rates and read all the fine print before heading out to your getaway.

You are a novice in wine tasting and you are invited to a home wine tasting party by a close friend. Bad scenario, you would think, because you cannot go to the party since you know next-to-nothing about wine, and you cannot excuse yourself because your friend is very close and will not feel good about it.

Check the Web for a Wine Tasting Guide

This is not a time to panic. All you have to do is click your mouse and you will find a list of sites which can provide you with a comprehensive wine tasting guide which will give the basics for the party.

Some Tips for Wine Testing Which Will Make your Wine Tasting Guide More Efficient

* The first thing you will have to do is to observe the color of the wine and see whether it is clear or cloudy. In order to do this, you will have to hold it against something white (it is most likely that your hosts will provide you with the white linen table cloth for this purpose) * The next step is to swirl the wine glass with a tiny flick of your wrist. Once you do this you will observe a few streak of wine forming on the glass. These streaks are called the legs of the wine and these will help the taster determine the type of the body of the wine. * The swirling of the glass will also release the smell out of the glass. There are a gazillion aromas and you will have to attach the smell you get to a label and write it down * After going through these steps, you will need to throw the wine in your glass in the special buckets or other place the hosts have organized for you. * Many people also prefer to spit out the wine from their mouth rather than drink it. Though it sounds pretty crass, you actually do not have much of a choice if you like to keep tasting wines. Otherwise, by the end of an hour, you will not be in a position to even spell your name, forget about qualifying any wine.

Look at the above list – for all practical purposes this is a good wine tasting guide. This is the basics of all that you need to know. For further details, you can easily access any wine tasting guide from the Internet.

For many people wine tasting is a profession, something that cannot be trifled with. Yet, for some others, wine tasting is a way of having fun and enjoying life. However, both the parties agree that wine tasting glasses are extremely important during wine tasting – whether the latter is done for fun or as a profession.

What is the ‘Bouquet’?

If you have been around wine-tasting parties or events you would have definitely heard this term. Okay, this does not refer to the flowers on the table – actually it does not refer to any flower bouquet. What it means is the aroma of the wine. The smell of the wine you are tasting or you are going to taste, is called the bouquet. The bouquet as a term is interchangeable with the term, ‘nose’ which is used most commonly at very refined wine-tasting ceremonies.

In case you did not know how to get the bouquet or the nose out of the wine, the following few lines will explain it to you. The wine tasting glasses are kept on the table and filled with the wine that you are supposed to taste. The wine tasting glasses are usually shaped like bulbs to produce the right smell while tasting. The lower and large part of the wine tasting glasses usually allow for the space that it is needed to swirl the wine, while the narrow mouth allows the aroma to be “captured’ by your nose.

The wine is then stirred, or rather swirled, in the glass and the aroma captured when it leaves the wine tasting glasses. The swirl is done is a specific way and it would be good if you have a few rounds the practice at home with water, lest you will spill wine on the white linens at the party.

The swirling movement has to be extremely exact, while totally circular so that wine completes a round in the glass without leaving the glass. The gentle swirl should be sufficient for the wine to make at least two rounds in the glass. The stirring would throw up the wine’s smell for you to take note of it.

This smell is called the bouquet – some wines do smell like flowers, but the name is not generated from this aspect. Whatever may be the reason for calling the smell of the wine a ‘bouquet’, the process has proved that the wine tasting glasses do play a very important role.

Marcia Parks

Thomas Jefferson said, “Good wine is a necessity of life for me”. No wonder he was one of our founding fathers!

More and more people are drinking wine these days and why not? It’s readily acknowledged by the medical community that drinking red wine in moderation has a myriad of health benefits including lowering your risk of contracting heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer and cataracts. I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s a good enough reason to enjoy a glass or two every night. In addition, it’s a nice way to relax after a rough day and getting together with friends over a glass of wine is a great venue for socializing and having fun.

One way to do this is by hosting a wine tasting party. Besides being a lot of fun, this is an excellent approach for learning about wine and maybe finding a few new wines you really enjoy. Below are some guidelines that will help you to organize a wine tasting that’s sure to be a hit.

Inviting your guests- The first thing you need to consider when organizing a wine-tasting party is how many people to invite. Generally speaking, 8 to 12 is considered the optimum number of guests. This size group is large enough to promote spontaneous interaction and small enough to be easily manageable.

Whether you telephone, email, or sent written invitations is a personal choice. I happen to prefer sending email invitations. American Greetings has a great card site that includes “eInvites”. It’s a wonderful service where you can send invitations and your guests can simply click a button to RSVP. You can even schedule follow-up reminders. The American greeting site has a $20.00 yearly membership fee, but for all the ecards and services, I think it’s worth it.

Choosing the wine- In my opinion, choosing the wine to taste at your party is the best part of the planning stage. But then, I happen to get mesmerized every time I walk into a large wine store. There’s so much to choose from.

There are many different ways you can handle wine selection. One option is to consider a themed party. For example: “California Chardonnays”, “German Rieslings”, “Wines Under $10.00”, or “Italian Reds”. The possibilities here are endless, so don’t be afraid to be creative. Another option might be to choose wines from a particular winery or even to select different vintages (years) of the exact same wine. Selecting different vintages of the same wine is called a vertical tasting and this may be more costly to do since older vintages tend to carry a higher price tag.

When buying the wine for your party, keep in mind that for tasting purposes, each pour should be about two ounces. This means that for eight people or less, one 750 ml bottle should be enough.

The question of food- No party would be complete without food. However, depending on your goal for the event, you may want to wait until after tasting the wine to serve food because food affects the taste of wine and visa-versa. If your goal is to have an informal gathering of friends and experience new wines with good food, by all means serve food paired with the various wines. In fact, an easy and fun way to have a wine tasting party is to ask your guests to bring the various courses (appetizers, soup, salad, dessert) along with a paired wine while you provide the main course and wine.

If your primary goal is tasting and judging new wine, it is more appropriate to wait until after the tasting to serve the food. Instead, during the tasting, provide only unflavored crackers (saltines) or bread to cleanse the palette between wines.

Tasting and rating the wine- Remember to limit your pours to two ounces (visually, two ounces is about two inches in a normal size wine glass). Place pitchers of water out for your guests to rinse their glasses or cleanse the palette between tastings. Also, have buckets available for those who choose to spit out the wine instead of swallowing it. Spitting is not necessarily an indication of not liking the wine. Many wine tasters spit so they will not be affected by alcohol consumption. Especially if the tasting is to be followed by socializing and drinking wine.

One suggestion for tasting and rating the wine is to simply hand out paper and pens to each of the guests as they arrive so they are able to make notes on each wine tasted. To make this process more structured and organized, you can download and print wine tasting forms from the internet. Clicking on the link “wine tasting form” link in the resource box at the end of this article will take you to Wine-Reviewer where you may download and print several different forms.

You may reduce the chance of ratings being influenced by personal preference or prejudice by having a “blind tasting”. To do this, completely wrap each of the bottles with aluminum foil and label it with a number. The wine will then be identified and judged by the number on the bottle.

To make the evening a bit more interesting and educational, research the wine, winery and wine-making region. Your guests will probably find the information interesting and will appreciate your effort.

Using these guidelines, having a wine-tasting party is as easy as 1-2-3-4. Have fun, but please remember to drink responsibly and do not let others drink and drive. If possible, have someone be a designated driver to insure that everyone gets home safely.

About The Author

Marcia Parks is a successful free-lance author and wine reviewer. You can find extensive wine reviews and education at www.wine-reviewer.com.

If you are a good host or hostess and want to do something special for your friends, use the weekend to host a wine tasting event. Do not worry; this does not really involve any effort and it has the scope of tremendous fun and popularity.

Before you organize such a party, find the answer to these questions; are people fond of wine and do they have any idea about what wine tasting is? If they do not love wine, then this party may not be a good idea.

However, if they love wine chances are that they know about wine tasting. But in case they don’t, you can explain them the process in the invitation card.

What do I Need to Have a Wine Tasting Event at Home?

Organizing a wine tasting event through a party at home is not really difficult; it involves very little effort on the part of the host, and the guests are assured to have a great time. The drawback with this idea is that you will be asked constantly asked when your next party will be!

The highlights of a wine tasting event:

* Treat the wine tasting event as you would treat a hobby – make it fun, make it simple, make it within the understanding of everyone. Avoid at all costs any technical jargon. * Ensure that your guests have plenty of pens and papers so they jot down what they think about the wine. Ensure that you have given them which major areas they need to cover and what type of comments you need. * Limit the quantity to a maximum of four to six types of wine, lest it becomes monotonous and boring. Have wine of great quality so the guests enjoy the exercise * Have a theme attached to the party; this makes people happier and more creative * Provide some food such as cheese, fruits, crackers and water for people to cleanse their mouths between the tasting * Have a few buckets installed at different points in the tasting room, so that people can freely spit the wine out * Serve the party food only after the tasting session has finished, lest the food will interfere with the wine tasting event * Have some soft music playing in the background which relaxes the mind and sharpens the senses while tasting the wine

These are but a few points that you should take care of when you plan your wine tasting event. As you can see nothing is really very difficult to organize. People will love you for taking this initiative, and you can expect these parties to grow in popularity overnight.

One of my very close friends has all of a sudden moved to a small yet beautiful place close to Rome, Italy and he has written to me that they have exceptionally beautiful wine tasting parties which he enjoys thoroughly. He had also asked me to search the web and see if I can get anything on a good wine tasting course which he could complete in three to six months at most.

What Should a Wine Tasting Course Normally Teach?

Basically speaking a wine tasting course should be able to explain and familiarize the student with the facts of wine tasting. This includes teaching the people regarding how to recognize the good wines from the bad wines, learning to identify the year of the wine, being able to tell apart hundreds if not thousands of different flavors.

There are many things that a good wine tasting course can offer:

* Protocol – one should know what to do and what not to do during a party; protocol is always important here. * What type of wine is it? * The things you need for use – such as certain type of glasses for the purpose * A blindfold which will make add spice to your study on finding out what exactly the right flavor is. * How to judge red wine, white wine and other possible wines? * What food needs to be served along with the wine at a tasting party? * How to get the smell of the wine with a swirl in the glass?

A good and comprehensive wine tasting course is a way to find out the basic points of wine tasting. Sometimes, the course is a month long and sometimes as long as six months too. You can choose according to your time and budget what type of a wine tasting course you would like to enroll in.

You can also supplement your knowledge with the help of the internet where you get a good number of websites with lovely content on wine. However, undergoing a course successfully is only possible provided you get good faculty and good material.

Another advantage of a wine tasting course is that is will impart all the required knowledge in a systematic manner which will make it easier to absorb the nitty-gritty later. A wine tasting course can open the doors wide open to newly found friends and a new hobby.

Lots of people, all over the world, love wine. In fact this is one of the most popular beverages in the world. There are some hundreds of thousands of types of wine known to man – which is by any standards a huge number – and hence it offers you a great deal of room to learn.

Gathering Information about Wine

When there is a topic and there are many people interested in it, the best way to get thorough information about it is to gather these people together and start an exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience. Gradually, such a group could evolve into a club where like minded people learn, find out and solve problems about their favorite topic.

This is what you can do for wine lovers – start a wine tasting club. The wine tasting as a hobby has become one of the most popular leisure occupation yet. Hence, it will not be surprising to find an overwhelming demand for membership when the wine tasting club is launched.

This wine tasting club can organize wine-tasting parties, tours, quizzes, competitions and general parties. Besides, the wine tasting club can set up a forum for both people offline and online who want to know more about wine and wine tasting.

In order to meet with success while planning your wine tasting club, you will need to follow a few crucial requirements:

* Form a founding committee for the wine tasting club who have the time and willingness to spend promoting the venture * Conduct formal or informal market research and find out how many people really would be interested in joining such a club * Have a few wine tasting parties where you have different wine-based themes; make these parties interesting with quizzes and prizes. Focus not only on information dissemination; but having fun too. * Invite other people to join the wine tasting club and ask them to recruit those who they think would love to be part of this venture * Have only people who love wine and understand the concept. If you have people who are skeptical about the success of the wine tasting club as its members, you will find it difficult to promote the club

In order to be successful you will need a great commitment from the founding members. The wine tasting club will be seen by the community through the activities it coordinates and initiates, so ensure that you combine fun with community responsibility or you will be labeled as frivolous and unworthy of serious attention. Focus on the learning aspect and you will definitely be successful.

There are a lot of advantages in taking a wine tasting class if you are among people who love wine. Chances are that if people invite you for a glass of wine, or to a wine tasting party, without having taken a class, you will find yourself sticking out like a sore thumb with no knowledge about wine.

What does a Wine Tasting Class teach you?

There are many ways to learn about wine. One easy way is to score the Internet and find out the bits and pieces you feel are necessary to get you acquainted with wine and its consumption. However, if you are not confident of unearthing all the information you may require, it is good if you just enroll into a wine tasting class and let them teach you what is required and what is not.

A wine tasting class usually teaches you the basics about wine and wine tasting – depending upon the length of the course, you will be able to just get an idea of what is involved or get into the details of each and every aspect of this process. The following is an indicative list of what you could expect from a wine tasting class:

* Wine glasses – what they are and how they are used. Why it is required to have a certain type of glass for wine tasting and what is the significance of swirling the wine in a glass * Bouquet – Th