How to Make a Wine Seminar Fun

Use games to make your wine seminar more fun.

A wine seminar is an instructional session on wine that usually involves a tasting. Wine seminars are typically conducted by an expert in the field who explains the intricacies of specific types of wine, while inviting participants to sample them and notice their properties. Make your wine seminar more fun with games, food and tasting ideas that will engage participants and teach them something interesting about wine.

Instructions

1. Distribute scoring sheets at the beginning of the wine seminar. After each wine is explained and tasted, invite participants to rate the wine and leave comments. To make it more interesting, ask the designated leader not to say which wines are considered "better" until after the entire tasting. Calculate the average scores for each wine and announce them after the tasting. Read any comments that people have left and encourage discussion.

2. Provide food to go along with wines. While plain crackers are often used to cleanse the palette between tastings, provide other snacks that go with wine. Have participants sit around a large table and make up a few plates with crackers and bread sticks, a variety of cheeses, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and pickled eggplant and peppers. You might also include some cured meats. This will encourage a more festive atmosphere. When the seminar is over, you can pour each participant an extra glass of his favorite wine. People will stay around to drink and finish off the snacks.

3. Turn your wine seminar into a blind tasting. Have the expert introduce one type of wine and explain its characteristics. Pour two or three different wines of the same variety and have participants choose their favorite. Reveal the bottles and have the expert comment. You may throw in a wine of a different variety as a decoy. Repeat with another kind of wine.

4. Have participants guess the wine. Have the expert explain the properties of a wine variety. Pour three different kinds of wine. If the wine is a malbec, for example, each participant must guess which is the malbec. Keep score and declare a winner for the participant with the most correct guesses. Offer a bottle of wine as a prize.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure that any participants sampling wine do not drive home intoxicated.

References

• Wine Tastings Guide: Wine Tasting Party Ideas
• Wine Country Getaways: Hosting a Wine Tasting Party & Ideas-The Fun and Not So Serious

Resources

• Chiff.com: Wine Tasting Instructions