Tasting Event Guide

What you need:

• 5 to 6 bottles of Oregon Pinot noir. Most people reach their tasting threshold at around six bottles. A tasting of five to six different wines is about right for a group of 8 to 12 people.

• Paper bags to cover the wine bottles.

• Glasses. Each person participating in the tasting should have one glass for each bottle. Ideally everyone has the same style glass. But that can easily be a problem because of the number of glasses required. If you end up using different glass styles, at least try to make sure each taster has just one style of glass. Avoid plastic.

• Glass coasters.   Each taster should have a numbered coaster under each glass. Download and print coasters. Provide a note taking pen or pencil for each taster.

• Scoring sheet. Download and print scoring sheet.

• Food. Small cubes of French bread or a neutral cracker to clear the palate.

What to do for set-up.

• Open all the wines removing any identifying collar at the neck of the bottle, cover them with the bags, and label each bag with a number.

• Set the wine glasses out on the numbered coasters for each taster. Fill each glass with 2 to 4 oz. of wine.

• Make sure you pour the correctly numbered wine into the corresponding wine glass on the numbered coaster.

• All the wine glasses should have approximately the same amount of wine.

How to conduct the tasting.

Tastings usually follow the logical progression of these 4 steps:

Color (Appearance)
Smell (Aroma)
Taste
Swallow (Finish)

If people are new to wine tasting, it is good to explain how focusing on each of the senses represented by each step enhances the tasting experience. Depending on the group, it's also a good idea to say that it's not necessary for a taster to be able to describe the tasting experience in ways the professionals do. Keeping things simple is usually best.

Discussion may arise spontaneously as the tasting progresses, but you can also choose to limit discussion until after the scoring.

Tasters may need additional wine poured if they have doubts about a wine and want to give it a second taste.

The final step is to have each taster decide their top three preferences: 1 st, 2 nd, 3 rd.

The host can then start with bottle #1 and ask how many gave that wine a first place, how many a second place and, finally, how many a third place. Using the score sheet the host records the totals for bottle #1. Proceed through each bottle in this manner. (These totals can be entered directly into the form on this web page: OregonPinotNoirWine.com/project).

When all the bottles have been scored, simply add up the votes to determine the top three wines at your tasting . . . then reveal the identity of each wine.

Of course there should be plenty of wine left for the party to continue!