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Wine Serving Size: A Glass-By-Glass Guide To Wine Tasting

Wine Serving Size: A Glass-By-Glass Guide To Wine Tasting

Even if they look similar, wine tasting is quite different from drinking it at the dinner table or sipping it at night with your friends next to a cozy fire. Deciding how heavy your pours will be is incredibly important. There are a few things you need to keep in mind for tastings when it comes to portion size. A standard serving size of wine is 4 to 5 ounces for a regular glass, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll want to offer a full serving from each bottle. So what is the proper wine serving size for tasting purposes? How many wines should be in the flight? Let’s ponder!

Cheers To Perfect Portions: Here Is How Much Wine To Pour For Your At-Home Wine Tasting

Wine Tasting – A Few Things To Consider

From here you can assess how many wines you plan on trying throughout the tasting. You can pour a little extra if it’s only four or five. If you plan on sampling more than six or seven bottles, you might want to consider toning that back especially if the people participating aren’t avid drinkers.

My first few tasting events were quite memorable. Well, I should rephrase that… They were significantly noteworthy, but my temporary inebriation during those tastings rendered everything a tiny bit fuzzy ;) After just a few tastes, it became really hard to memorize the sampled wines, not to mention my ability to remain constructive faded away quickly. Needless to say, I’ve learned proper tasting techniques which consist in pacing myself and only sipping on the absolute minimum for endurance’s sake. Oh and hydrate constantly! I know, water… Yuck!

The Participants

Even if you are all friends, that doesn’t mean you all have the same drinking habits. One way of accommodating personal preferences is to ask each person individually how much they would like in their glass. You can do this at the beginning so you won’t interrupt the flow of the tasting, or you can simply pour the wine in front of them and have them stop you.

Another important factor of wine tasting is pace. DON’T RUSH IT. Some people may need more time to taste, gather their thoughts, and take notes. Make sure everyone is done with their glass and ready to move on before pouring the next wine. This will avoid the confusion of having people taste different wines and having to remember who is drinking what. There’s no set time but 5 to 10 minutes feels about right.

The Wine Selection

We’ve got the basics down, let’s turn our attention to wine selection. While traditional tasting typically includes a variety of types and styles, vertical tasting includes different vintages of the same type of wine from the same winery. This format allows you to sample a single winery’s product line from different vintage points. I remember doing this once with a Spanish wine called Marqués De Riscal. We tasted 6 consecutive years of the same wine and it was outstanding!

At-Home Wine Tasting Event – Locations Wine From Dave Phinney

Conversely, I hosted a tasting featuring the entire line of the Locations wines from winemaker and entrepreneur Dave Phinney. This is a great way to provide variations in winemaking techniques as wineries often have a wide range to choose from.

Alcohol Content

Though it may be the ultimate goal for some people, wine tasting isn’t about getting drunk, but a light buzz is perfectly acceptable. The limiting factor for any of this is how buzzed you’re willing to get versus how much of each wine you would like to taste. That dynamic will play out differently for a collection of high-alcohol wines versus low-alcohol bottles. Choosing the right wine for your at-home tasting doesn’t mean avoiding high alcohol content, it just means you need to consider that factor while pouring.

Wine Serving Size

So, wine pouring portions vary based on participants, alcohol content, and quantity of wine being tasted. A standard serving size for tasting purposes in any winery is 2 ounces. Between you and me, they are just trying to keep you in the “sweet spot,” right between lightly buzzed and sober enough to buy their wine before you leave ;)

When hosting a wine tasting event at your place, start with 2 ounces. If you’re only comparing 4 to 5 wines, you may go up to 3 ounces. That serving size will grant 25 pours from each bottle, meaning you could have up to 25 guests. Keep in mind that 3 ounces times 5 wines equals 15 ounces. If you’re comparing more than 5 wines, you should definitely stick with the standard 2-ounce pour.

Moreover, if your tasting revolves around high alcohol content (14 to 15%), you may even go down an ounce if there are several bottles you want to get through.

Wine Gadgets For Your Wine Tasting

Wine Gadgets For At-Home Wine Tasting EventsGet yourself automatic measuring bottle pourers from Amazon. They come in various styles and pouring increments. You should get 2 serving sizes (1 and 2 ounces) to accommodate all your wine tasting needs. Make sure you have enough wine glasses for everyone, WITH STEMS because why not ;) And lastly, give everyone a pen and a piece of paper to simultaneously take notes. I designed a five-bottle tasting sheet that proved to be extremely helpful. Let me know if the comments if you would like a copy of it.

Oh and make sure to have some food to munch on during the tasting. Get a variety of charcuterie, some cheese like gruyère, brie, and aged cheddar, dried fruits such as apricots and figs, nuts such as almonds and walnuts, and of course bread and crackers.

There you have it! Perfect wine pouring portions, under any condition. Once the tasting ends, you should have plenty left in the bottles for people to enjoy seconds of their favorite wines. In fact, it’s interesting to see which wines people gravitate to the most. More often than not, there are always one or two bottles that end up being everyone’s favorite. And at that point, the proper wine serving size is a “rule” that should definitely be broken ;)

Happy tasting!

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