Wine tasting parties are perfect for birthday celebrations, date night, girls’ night in, bachelorette parties, and more.

So, how do you make a wine tasting fun?

After hosting hundreds of private wine tastings, I’ve gathered some tips to help you host a wine tasting event for you and your friends.

If you’d like to hire me as a sommelier for your wine tasting, use this booking form here. My private in-person wine tastings are currently offered in Los Angeles and Orange County, California.

And if your party is spread out or you’re not located in SoCal, don’t worry! My private virtual wine tastings are just as fun and the perfect way to elevate your next celebration (or just casually learn about wine).

Anyway, if you choose not to hire a sommelier for your wine tasting, follow this step-by-step guide to ensure you have everything you need to throw a wine tasting party at home.

How to Plan a Wine Tasting Party at Home Plus 6 Unique Tasting Themes

Here are some unique wine tasting theme ideas, along with everything you need to make your wine tasting party the event of the year.

Step 1: What do you need to host a wine tasting?

The first step to hosting a wine tasting at home is ensuring you have everything you need. So once the party arrives, you can sit back and enjoy the wines yourself.

Wine

To host a wine tasting party, you’ll obviously need to get some wine.

You can select your wines based on a wine tasting theme you choose (more on that below), or just share what you have at home. In a standard wine tasting, I typically serve 3-4 different wines.

Be sure to get enough wine bottles for your party. When tasting 3-4 wines, I’d suggest getting one bottle of each style for every 6 people. One bottle of wine equates to about four large glasses, so one bottle for 6 people to taste will be more than enough.

Wine Glasses

Make sure everyone has at least one wine glass. It would be ideal for everyone to have one glass for whites and rosés and another for reds, but work with what you have. Just make sure you use clear glasses, so you can evaluate the color of each wine. And if you are using the same wine glass for multiple wines, be sure to give the glass a quick rinse with water between pours.

Additionally, glasses with stems are more ideal for wine, so you don’t warm up the bowl with your hands.

Wine Tasting Mats

I like to provide wine tasting mats to my guests, so they can place their glasses and write down some information about each wine, so they don’t forget. This is especially helpful if you are tasting all one style of wine (i.e. all whites or all reds).

If you don’t hire a sommelier for your wine tasting, you can do a quick Google search for printable tasting mats, or make something on your own (I used PowerPoint to make mine.)

Tasting mats typically have circles showing you where to place each glass, and you can even indicate space for your guests to write in the wine’s name, producer, vintage, and region.

Wine Tasting Notes Pages

I find the best way to actually learn at a wine tasting is to take notes. You can provide blank pages and some pens for your guests to jot down notes, or your sommelier will likely provide tasting notes and other materials to help guide you and your guests through the wine tasting.

Wine tasting guides or notes pages typically have space for the wine taster to write down different elements about the wine including the color, aromas, flavors, structural components, and personal notes to conclude what they liked or disliked about each wine.

Water

As you can imagine, it’s important to keep your guests hydrated during a wine tasting party. Place water jugs on the table and ensure everyone has their own water glass.

Snacks

Snacking is one of the best parts of attending a wine tasting, in my opinion. I love to provide food pairing suggestions for each wine we are tasting, so everyone can experiment with different pairings and see how food can change the flavor of wine.

Choose your snacks according to the wine tasting theme you select, or pick up some of your favorite, shareable bites for the table. Speaking of themes…

Step 2: choose a wine tasting theme

Now for the fun part, it’s time to choose a wine tasting theme. I’ve laid out some theme ideas for you, along with which wines you would need to get for each category.

Feel free to put your own spin on these themes and have fun doing it! Planning a wine tasting party is all about trying something new and sharing notes with your friends to learn more about your individual palates.

Wines by Region

Hosting a regionally themed wine tasting is one of the best ways to learn about how wines can differ from around the world.

For the regional theme, I like to pick a mix of wine styles. For example, I’ll typically choose one sparkling wine, one white wine, and one red wine from the same region. However, you might need to adjust this based on what the wine region you choose is best known for.

You can choose to explore a broader region like France or Italy, or break this down even further (i.e. wines of Burgundy or wines of Northern Italy). Here are some of my favorite regional wine tasting themes and the wines I would serve for each one:

Spain: Cava (sparkling), Albariño (white), Rioja (red)
Italy: Prosecco (sparkling), Pinot Grigio (white), Chianti Classico (red)
France: Champagne (sparkling), Sancerre (white), Bordeaux (red)
California: Chardonnay from Santa Barbara (white), Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley (red), Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley (red)

Pro tip: choose your snacks based on the wine region. Have you ever heard the phrase “What grows together goes together”? It’s basically a way of saying that wine from a specific region will most likely pair best with the foods from that region.

For example, if you choose the Wines of Spain theme, it’s fun to serve various tapas. Or if you pick an Italian theme, provide some of your favorite Italian bites like pizza, pasta, or regional cheeses.

Wine and Food Pairing

Wine and food pairing is my favorite subject, so I love to provide food pairing suggestions for each wine, no matter which wine tasting theme is chosen. However, you can plan an entire themed wine tasting based solely on food and wine pairing.

For example, here are some wine and food pairing themes for an at-home wine tasting:

Wine and Cheese Pairing
- When pairing wine with cheese, remember that white wines typically go better with soft cheeses, while red wines match better with hard or aged cheeses. Some of my favorite cheese and wine pairings are Sauvignon Blanc and goat cheese, Beaujolais and gruyere, and Cabernet Sauvignon and aged gouda.
Wine and Chocolate Pairing
- To best pair wine with chocolate, make sure the wine is sweeter than the chocolate, or else the wine will end up tasting bitter and astringent. Serve sweeter chocolate with dessert wine like Port, and more bitter chocolate with fruity red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon from California.
Wine and Pizza Pairing
- When pairing wine with pizza, it’s easiest to match the flavors of your sauce and toppings to the flavors of your wines. For example, white sauce pizzas will go better with white wines, while red sauce pizzas will go better with red wines. If you have meat toppings, go with a bolder red like Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec. If your pizza is vegetarian, you can pair it with a lighter red like Pinot Noir or Barbera.

Sharing tips on how to best pair wine with food is a great way to learn about how wine changes when paired with certain foods. Even if you don’t like a wine when you taste it alone, try pairing it with food and notice how the flavors develop.

Grape Variety

Exploring wines by grape variety is a great way to learn about how wine regions and winemaking techniques affect the flavor profiles of wine.

I love to choose a popular or well-known grape variety and get 3-4 wines made from this grape, but from different regions. Choose your favorite grape or try something new. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover a new favorite!

Here are some examples of this wine tasting theme, along with which regions to explore for each grape variety:

Sauvignon Blanc: New Zealand, Sancerre, Chile
Cabernet Sauvignon: California, South Africa, Bordeaux
Malbec: Argentina, France, California
Pinot Noir: Oregon, California, Burgundy

Old World vs. New World Wines

Old World wines refer to any wines that come from Europe, while New World wines are any wines that are from outside of Europe.

These two categories can differ in many ways due to climate, soils, winemaking techniques, etc., but the biggest differences can be found in the body, alcohol content, and flavors of the wines.

New World wines tend to be fuller-bodied, higher in alcohol, and have more fruity flavors than Old World wines. Try exploring the same grape variety from various regions to see if you can taste the differences.

Here are some theme ideas for an Old World vs. New World wine tasting:

Sancerre vs. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
Vouvray vs. South Africa Chenin Blanc
Bordeaux vs. Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Burgundy vs. Oregon Pinot Noir

Pay attention to these different styles and take note of which ones you like best. This will help guide you to discover more wines that are aligned with your preferences.

Wine Styles

Stick to all one style of wine and compare the differences. This is the best way to explore how the same style of wine can vary according to the grape its made from or region it comes from, while learning about the world’s most important wines.

Here are some examples of this wine tasting theme and the wines you need for each. I’ve selected these wines based on the most popular styles for each category.

All Sparkling Wines: Prosecco, Cava, Champagne
All White Wines: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay
All Red Wines: Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon

Of course, if you are more advanced or esoteric in your wine preferences, you can always ask your local wine store to help you choose the bottles for your wine tasting, or hire a sommelier to put together the wine list and lead the wine tasting for you (you can read more about my virtual and in-person wine tasting experiences here.)

Blind Wine Tasting

A blind wine tasting party is a fun way to challenge your friends and improve your wine tasting skills. In order to host a blind wine tasting party, the wine bottles should be placed in brown bags, so each wine is a surprise.

If you’d also like to be surprised by the wines, you can work with a local wine store and see if they will help put this together for you. Let them know you’d like to host a blind wine tasting party and your budget. They can likely place each bottle in a brown paper bag for you, so all you have to do is pay and pick up your mystery bottles.

You can also make a game of this and have everyone try to guess the grape, region, and vintage of the undercover wines. Be sure to not reveal the wine bottles until everyone has made their guesses. Each wine taster can receive points for everything they guess correctly about each wine.

Tasting a wine blindly is perfect for getting to know your wine preferences without any preconceived notions. This is a true test for your palate!

everything you need to plan a wine tasting party at home

step 3: hire a sommelier

The best way to plan a wine tasting party at home is to hire a sommelier to lead you and your guests through each wine. All you have to do is invite your friends, grab some wine and food, and come thirsty.

If you’d like to book a private virtual or in-person wine tasting with me, fill out this form here. You’ll see a variety of themes to choose from, but all of my wine tasting events are completely customizable, so we can discuss a theme that interests you and your guests most.

Once you choose a theme, I’ll provide the wine selections, food pairing suggestions for each wine, wine tasting mats, and wine tasting notes pages and guides. If you book an in-person private wine tasting, I’ll even bring the wines and wine glasses!

I hope this post helps you plan the ultimate wine tasting party at home. If you try out any of these wine tasting themes, let me know in the comments!

If you’d like to attend a themed wine tasting, check out or upcoming virtual and in-person events here. As I mentioned, food and wine pairing is my favorite theme, so each month, I host a virtual wine and food tasting open to the public. Every month we choose a different wine and food pairing topic, so grab a ticket, pick up some snacks, and invite your friends over for a wine tasting party.

If you would like to learn more about how to wine taste, check out this post about the 5 S’s of wine tasting to help you get to know your palate.

Ready to further your wine education? Enroll in a WSET class today and use code LexiStephens for a discount.

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