How to Host a Wine Tasting Party

A couple weeks back we hosted a wine tasting party for our friends to celebrate moving into the new house and just get our friends from our other town together with some new friends we have met here, so today I thought I would share how to host a wine tasting party. I shared some IG Stories on this and I got so many messages from you all to share the party details on the blog. This party was never meant to show up here on the blog and I am thrilled y’all wanted to see it. It was a casual get together inspired by my friends new venture into becoming a consultant for Scout & Cellar wine. If you’ve never heard of it before then you are missing out!

Scout & Cellar is clean crafted wine free of pesticides and made by sustainable organic or/and biodynamic farming methods. Each wine is hand picked under rigorous standards making these wines not only amazing to drink but free of toxic chemicals. You can check out more information about all this HERE.

We had thought to keep this under 20 people and I had wanted to do it as a couples party. I know my husband enjoys wine and thought maybe the other husbands would like this party idea too. I didn’t just want to have people come over to see the house. I wanted something we all could do together. I have been missing the wineries back in California and though the closest one was 40 minutes away, I think we really took it for granted living there because we rarely went unless we were up North at my parents house.

How to Host a Wine Tasting Party:

After we decided on the guest list then I set out making a list of the items I needed to have on hand. This is a good little shopping list and thought you might like it too so just click any of the items below to take you right to the exact ones I got.

Shopping list for party:

• Wine – We love the Scout & Cellar collection
• Wine Glasses
• Wine Glass Markers
• Cocktail Napkins
• Flowers
• Various Cheeses (to pair with the wines)
• Side/Appetizer Plates
• Favor Bags
• Mini Burlap Bags
• Chocolate Covered Almonds
• Red Burlap Ribbon
• Favor Tags & Signs

Keep it simple and decorate just a few spots.

For this party, I only decorated three areas rather than all the kitchen and living room. I knew everyone would be sprinkled everywhere and I wanted the wine to be the focus. So I set up this little signed on the kitchen counter welcoming our guest and placed the wine glasses and wine pens for everyone to grab here. When our guests arrived, they were to grab a wine glass, write their name on the glass and then we poured them a glass of the NV L’Original Rosé. And these wine pens are amazing! They come in 6 colors and I used these vintage milk glass pieces to hold them. When you wash the glasses, the writing comes right off. These would be so fun for the holidays too!

I had little white bowls with chocolate covered almonds for people to snack on before we got started with the official tasting. I had these cute little signs made by this etsy shop HERE and I just popped them into frames I already had.

Use your wine glasses as party favors.

I got these wine glasses for a great price HERE. I also gave these to the guests as part of their favors when they left so they were definitely worth it. Since it was a couples party, I thought it would be nice to leave with matching glasses.

Have lots of fresh flowers.

I got all my fresh flowers from Trader Joes and sprinkled them in vases I already had on the kitchen counter, in the entry and in the powder bathroom. Fresh flowers are a must in my book when you are having a party.

Use inexpensive white dishes and bowls to keep your color palette neutral.

Last minute I picked up these plain white plates. I totally had thought I had enough in my cupboard but then I went and looked and only had 10. These were SO inexpensive and I think it’s just always good to have white serving pieces in your cabinets.

Add touches of fresh greenery in your decor.

I used greenery from Trader Joes for under the wine bottles. It is a fun alternative to a table runner or cloth. Fresh greenery is so pretty when you tuck it in here and there. I just overlapped the branches to create a fuller look.

Display the wines you will be serving.

Also our friends were able to see what wines we were serving and the tasting order. (though I might have put them out of tasting order for the photos!)

I am such a sucker for good branding and Scout & Cellar has the most gorgeous labels. This rosé bottle is my favorite!

Pair cheeses with your wines.

These 2 ladies below worked the butts off for our party. Chris on the left is an executive director for S&C and gave us so much great back ground information on the brand. So grateful for her guidance and expertise on these delicious wines!

Before planning your wine tasting party, make sure you get cheeses that will compliment your wines. I left this detail up to these ladies since I am clueless on this. This is party of the fun though when you are doing a tasting and being told what cheese to pair your wine with.

Before everyone left, I gave them one of these cute goodie bags.

I added in their wine glasses and had a small burlap bag of chocolate almonds to go. There was also their tasting cards and a little snippet on the S&C brand in case they wanted to purchase additional bottles after the party.

I ordered these simple kraft bags and added coordinating stickers to my signs (found HERE) and tied some red burlap ribbon on the handle.

This is really one of the only pictures I have from the night which tells you we were in the moment and had a blast with our friends! You can host a wine party with Scout & Cellar too even if you are not local to North Dallas. They have consultants everywhere. BUT if you are in my neck of the woods, you can not get any better than these ladies. You can contact/shop with Jolene HERE to host your own wine party and to buy bottles directly from their site.