Hosting a Wine Tasting in Your Home
If you’re a wine connoisseur, nothing is more gratifying than sharing your love of wine with a group of friends. Hosting a wine tasting in your home is one of the best ways to experiment with new wines, show off your wine collection, and enjoy an evening with good company.
If you have a wine cellar in your home and space permits, you can even invite guests to tour your wine cellar. It’s a great way to show off your vintage collection, allow your guests to choose their favorite wines, and set the right atmosphere for the event.
Get the Timing Right
Wine tasting expert Stephen Tanzer from Food & Wine recommends scheduling a wine tasting shortly before lunch or dinner. That way you can follow up the event with a gourmet dinner paired with your favorite wines.
Set the Atmosphere
A custom wine cellar that’s designed to showcase your collection with built-in wine cabinets and racks can be the perfect place to start your wine tasting party. Even if the space is too small for your guests to be comfortable, you can still take your guests down to the wine cellar just before the tasting so that they can see your entire collection and choose some of their favorite wines to try.
If weather permits, consider hosting your wine tasting outdoors before lunch or dinner. Then bring your guests inside for the full meal.
Wine Pairing Advice
The goal of your wine pairing is to bring together complementary elements of the meal. You can achieve complementary status through both similar and contrasting elements. Although there are thousands of ways to categorize your pairing, we recommend focusing on only one element for a single meal: such as the salty-sweet dialect. If you have a fatty meal do you want to even it out with some champagne or a cabernet-based wine? Or if you have a salty meal even it out with a sweet or sparkling wine? Below are a few basic pairing elements for food and wine to help you in your planning:
- Acid and acid
- Sweetness and saltiness
- Bitter and fat
- Alcohol and fat
- Light wine and light food
However creative you want to be, the golden rule here is to not mix bitter and bitter…more than a hint of bitter is unpleasant for most people.
Wine Cellar Storage Minneapolis
If you are love wine and tasting parties, consider adding a custom wine cellar storage space to your home. Wine cellars properly store and organize your wine collection to ensure proper taste and will make your wines last for years.
Harkraft is a premiere Minneapolis wine cellar storage company for the Twin Cities metro area. Contact us today for a free consultation: (763) 544-4478. For wine cellar and wine rack ideas, see our gallery.