Home wine tastings can be casual or formal. The casual affair may be no more difficult than throwing a few bottles out, having friends bring a bottle and an appetizer. But if that sounds more like a cocktail and appetizer party, well that's because that's what that really is. A more formal home wine tasting simply takes a little preparation in order to facilitate the orderly flow for critical analysis and discussion. It is really no different than having some semblance of order with your book club meeting, cocktail and appetizer gathering or dinner party. There are seating considerations, music, lighting, drinks, snacks, food, utensils, plates, timing , temperatures and other details that we do automatically. When it comes to wine tastings, unless you've done dozens of them, it takes a little more thought and attention to details that you may not quite remember. 

Setting up the tasting requires some basics, the first of which would be the selection of the theme. This could be centered around a particular variety like Cabernet Sauvignon or a country like Italy or region like Napa Valley or just the color of the wine red or white. Once that is selected you'll need to decide if everyone is bringing wine or you are supplying it at your cost or charging all the guest an equal share of the cost. Next you'll decide if the tasting will be blind, semi blind or if everyone gets to see the labels as they taste. Generally most tastings are either blind or semi blind in order to keep tasters from being unduly influenced by the cost or reputation of the wine. An educational tasting say on a region or variety unfamiliar to most or all of the group could be done labels showing, because the real aim is to familiarize everyone with the style and options for that variety or region. 

Once you've selected the theme, you'll need to take care of some practical planning like how many glasses you will need. What order you will pour the wines in and how the tasting will proceed. People can bring their own glassware, though the variance may cause some variations in the tasting experience between the participants. There is good stemware and bad stemware. Doing the wines blind would would preclude a specific order but labels up cold allow you to guess at a plausible order based on variety, vintage producer etc. Food can be served before or after and it is best just to have water and bread as a palate cleanser during. 

The tasting set up, if you are seating everyone will require either a white tablecloth or a white placemat of some sort. This is for the color assessment part. Lighting should be as close to natural daylight as possible. There should not be any strong scents emanating from the kitchen, from fragrant candles, or linen. Participants should avoid heavy scented perfumes, colognes, hair products, lotions etc.

Blind tasting require you to bag the wines and mark the bag with a number or letter, so you can assign your tasting notes to the correct wine. A tasting sheet will be needed and there are some free ones available on the internet or you can use the ones provided in our resource area.

Back to the glassware. You can either use one glass per taster and rinse in between wines or set up 4-8 glasses for each taster in a semi-circle pattern. If you do the latter make sure you mark each glass with a corresponding number or letter, as some people easily jumble them. 

Ensure the wines are at within the proper serving temperature range, as listed in or resources. Room temperature should be cool because the hotter it is the faster the poured wines will warm up and out of the range. Unless you're an Eskimo, the room being to cold should not be a concern. For these reasons, you should not pour the wines until the tasting is near at hand. Pour just before you seat the participants. 

So your mise en place looks like this. Lighting check, odor check, writing instrument, tasting sheet, numbered or lettered glasses, water to cleanse perhaps some plain bread, wine poured and then guess seated. 

You can decide if talking is permitted during the analysis part, it will influence some peoples scoring. It is best to save comments and discussion after everyone has completed their tasting notes. 

The discussion moderator can take a poll of how each taster ranked each wine and assign the opposite value to it. So if 5 wines and wine A got 1st place it would get 5 points. Tallying the scores at the end will determine how they ranked overall. 

The reveal is now ready and you may want to have info on where the wines can be purchased, the price or have this supplied beforehand by the participants who brought them. That can be just written on a piece of paper and placed in the info bowl for use at the end of the tasting. 

If you are researching this info, winesearcher is a good source to find average pricing.