With the number of wine tastings in the area seemingly to drop through the summer months why not have one of your own. You can have an inexpensive home wine tasting party at your home that might even be more fun and productive then a public one. You pick the wines & you feel more open to share your thoughts on the wines around friends.

You may choose to do a traditional wine tasting party as we will explain below or have some fun and mix it up. You may even decide to make it a regular thing. Some people I know have for years had a bi-monthly meal/wine tasting with friends. They have a short wine tasting with apatizers followed by a meal in which they finish off the wine they tasted.

If you already have home tastings please let us know your methods and your successes.

Here is a wine tasting method by about.com:

A Wine Tasting party is an ideal way to get friends and family together to learn about wine and experiment with new or unusual varietals. Whether you are merely pairing wines with specific cheeses, or doing a vertical or horizontal tasting, you are sure to notice new nuances in both red wines and white wines as a result of the focused tasting. Read on for practical steps to help you host a tip top tasting experience.

Difficulty: Average

Time Required: 2-3 hours

Here’s How:

1. To begin your wine tasting party planning, you will need to decide what type of tasting you would like to host. There are many versions of wine tastings, from wine and cheese pairings to vertical, horizontal, price point and beyond. Types of Tastings Recommended Include:
   The Vertical Wine Tasting
   The Horizontal Wine Tasting
   Old World vs. New World Wine Tasting
   The Wine and Cheese Tasting
   The Wine and Chocolate Tasting
   The “Priceless” Wine Tasting
   The Price Point Wine Tasting
   The “Big Eight” Wine Tasting
2. Determine your guest list and send invites at least two weeks before your tasting (you may consider utilizing free online invites through: evite.com).
3. Design a tasting card that specifies the type of wine, the producing vineyard, the year and a brief description of the wine (usually found on the wine’s label). Make sure that each guest has their own tasting card to record the wine’s distinct appearance, aroma, flavor, and cheese pairing nuances.If you want to keep the tasting a bit more casual, simply supply guests with a pen and paper for them to jot down their own notes. Have them rate the wines - which wine did they like the best, least, etc.
4. To make your event a bit more challenging, offer a “blind tasting” experience. In this case, you still provide your guests with their individual tasting cards. However, you pour each wine without identifying the label (cover bottles with foil or a brown bag and mark with a number prior to serving), allowing them to incorporate all of their senses to identify the respective wines based on the labels’ descriptions. The guest that is able to identify the most wines correctly wins a prized bottle of wine or perhaps a book on the art of wine tasting.
5. Decorations for a wine tasting party can range from a white table cloth and candles to Old World, Tuscan faux paintings and vintage bottles scattered throughout your “tasting room.” In either case, remember to keep the atmosphere light and engaging. You may consider starting the evening with a bit of wine trivia, just to get the conversation rolling.
6. Still feel like you could use a bit more help in the planning and hosting of the Wine Tasting party? Then check out the SWILL® Wine Tasting Party Kit - includes tasting guidelines, fun invites, a step-by-step guide, wine bags, glass markers and of course, a corkscrew. [http://erclk.about.com/?zi=7/1j%5b8]Compare Prices of Tasting Party Kit[/link]

Tips:

1. Typically, when tasting wines, you will want to work from dry to sweet with white wines and progress from light to full-bodied with red wines. Also, it is ideal to start with younger wines and move to the more mature wines at the end. Have your guests sample each wine by itself, assessing the wine’s unique color, aroma and flavors.
2. The general rule of thumb for determining how much wine to pour per person is: 2 ounces of wine per glass, per wine for each tasting.
3. Providing plain bread and water between wines, allows for guests to cleanse their palate and sets them up to fully experience the next wine.

What You Need:

• Four to Six Wines
• Appetizers - you might consider offering some light munchies before the tasting
• Loaf of bread – provide plain bread for guests to cleanse palate between wines
• Wine glasses – one per guest
• Pitcher of water – for rinsing glasses and palates between wines
• Dump bucket – for discarding wine before next pouring
• Tasting cards – for describing and recording each wine tasted
• Aluminum foil or brown bags to cover wine bottles if you opt for blind tasting
• Pens and Paper
• Humor – encourage your guests to share their thoughts and humor on each wine

Here are a few more links to some methods & tips:

Wine Tasting Party | Top Two Types of Wine Tasting | Wine Score Sheets

How to Host a Wine-Tasting Party: Tips for a Wine Tasting Party …

Hosting a Wine Tasting Party: How to throw your own Wine Tasting …

Strat’s Place - How to Hold a Wine Tasting

by John Little

Maybe you’ve heard some of your beer loving friends lament an increase in craft beer prices, the current world-wide hop shortage and how the shortage has altered the character of their favorite beers.  A combination of factors, including a vast surplus of hops in the 90s, decreased hop farm acreage in the early 2000s and a devastating hail storm in Czechoslovakia and Slovenia in 2007 has led to hop price increases of as much as 500% for some varieties.  Other varieties simply can’t be found.  Hopheads around the world fear they won’t see their favorite Imperial IPAs on the market for at least a few years, until the market recovers.  Many craft brewers are being forced to reformulate their most popular hoppy beers, substituting alternate hop varieties for their “signature” varieties.

However, Sierra Nevada isn’t letting the hop shortage damage their reputation for producing some of the best craft beers in the U.S.  Last month, Sierra Nevada released its “Early Spring Beer,” an American version of an English Extra Special Bitter (ESB) that “combines the best of English tradition with West Coast style;” and, at 5.9% abv, the beer just barely escapes being criminal in Alabama, so Auburn residents are fortunate to be able to enjoy it.  For this brew, Sierra Nevada uses a blend of English and American malts and hops to produce a delicious and refreshing unfiltered ale with a reddish-copper hue, a unique rich and malty sweetness, an earthy spiciness as bitterness and a slight cedar and citrus aroma.

John Little is a healthcare attorney whose real passion is brewing beer.  If you’re interested in learning to brew your own, visit auburnbrewclub.org.

John Little | Auburn, Alabama | http://auburnbrewclub.org

Padron Anniversary 1964 Superior
42 x 6 1/2 Natural
Nicaragua

A number of my friends really enjoy Padron cigars, so I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. So I tried one. It was good, but I wasn’t impressed. Since then, I’ve continued to hear similar raves and reading good things about the Anniversary Series, constantly. So I decided that my next Padron experience would be one from the Anniversary line.

I found this particular one, in a shop over in Charleston, while visiting a few weeks ago. I picked it up, along with a couple of other sticks I’d been recently looking for. I knew it was supposed to be good, I just didn’t know how good. B

oy, was I in for an experience.

I can’t say enough good things about this cigar. It might just be the best non-cuban I’ve ever had, it’s certainly the best I’ve had since we started this site.

It lit with relative ease. The burn was even. The draw was smooth. The flavor was creamy and full, but not overbearing. Sound perfect? It just about was. I can’t wait to have another one of these.

I give it a 9.5 out of 10

-Jonathan