WHICH WINES TO TRY
If you live in a wine-producing area - be it Egypt, New Zealand, Ontario or Iowa - I highly recommend putting your local wines into a tasting with the very best wines from other areas that you and your fellow tasters can afford to try. Except as an educational exercise, there seems little point to comparing heavy hot-country wines with lighter cold-climate entries. Remember that wherever you are, your regional wines will carry the stigma of "domestic". The only way to get through to some tasters is to hide the bottles and have at them.
A note on tasting - do not worry when the "local expert" gets very upset when he/she cannot identify the wines. And if they get upset and don't come back you have lost nothing. Find people who are eager and open-minded and you will be part of something worthwhile.
Wherever you may happen to be, I wish you well, and hope you enjoy the fun that we have experienced here in Central Ontario...
Larry Paterson, LFW, RD (little fat wino, roving drunk)...
A simple tasting can consist of nothing more extravagant than 5 or 6 people sitting around a table with 3 bottles of wine. Simply pull the corks, put bags on the bottles, number them and taste away. Make it fun and simple. Each person must put their name on the piece of paper, mark which one they liked best, and least, and which one they think is which. This is a good way to kill an hour for a few bucks, and can be something to do at a family get-together.
OVERVIEW
Professional tasters are normally poured about 1.5 to 2 ounces of each wine (or more). They make a number of rude noises in an attempt to get the maximum experience of the wine. This is generally undesirable in a home tasting unless the room is full of wine geeks. And unnecessary - as long as all the wines are treated in the same fashion. 1 ounce per person will keep costs down and allow each person to make a judgement. And all that can be said about ANY tasting results is that they were the opinion of THIS group of tasters on THAT given day.
Pick the wines that you want to compare. I'd suggest starting with no more than six. They should have common characteristics (Our tastings focus generally on cool climate red wines). Split the costs evenly between the tasters, and don't forget to buy some bread and cheese too!. Use bread and cheese that is not strongly flavoured as it can affect the taste of the wines. We generally taste wines in flights of 3 or 4 at a time, and take a break halfway through. Bread (with a neutral flavour) is on the table at all times.
Be sure to have water pitchers or jugs on the table, both for rinsing glasses and for tasters to moisten their mouths. Especially when tasting tannic red wines, your mouth can become quite dry. And provide a spittoon for anyone who chooses to use it. Opaque plastic beer cups are quite acceptable.
You may want to make a "placemat" for each taster from a piece of paper. It is simply a spot for the taster to put the glass back each time. Say you are tasting 9 wines, 3 groups of 3. Mark three big "X's" across the wide part of the page, at the top (or make nice circles for the glasses to sit on). Under the X's, mark the numbers 1-4-7; 2-5-8; and 3-6-9. This is so that people don't lose track of which glass is which. And leave a spot on the bottom of the placemat for people to write their scores (see below). You may want to consider making one nicely and getting photocopies...
Speaking of glasses, they should be clear and have stems, and all be the same shape and size (at least the same for each taster). The type of glass can make a big difference. But if each taster has three or four identical glasses each wine has the same chance. Wine glasses that have been stored in boxes or upside down on shelves tend to smell like the box or the shelf. I suggest letting them stand upright on the table for half an hour ahead of the tasting. 
Any wine in an outsize, heavy or otherwise identifiable bottle needs to be carefully decanted into a clean bottle just prior to the tasting. We have also started making sure that all wines are in green bottles, and I forsee decanting all bottles into a standard shape at some time. Some of our people have become quite expert at identifying the wine based on the shape, weight or colour of the bottle. Keep some spare clean bottles. Remove the labels (soaking in hot water will help, as will elbow grease and a scrub pad!). Once clean, store them upside down in a wine carton lined with newspaper. Use a mailing label - or even a piece of paper held on by an elastic - to put the name of the wine on the bottle.
Two people remove the remaining corks and capsules and hide the bottles in bags with elastics around the top. The bag should come close to the top - but avoid pouring wine through the exciting combination of paper bag and elastic. Be sure to caution your tasters about the paper and elastic. I have also heard of people purchasing socks with drawstrings to fancy up the procedure.
The people who prepared the bottles now leave the room and the bags will be numbered by two people who have been out of the room until now. The wines are ready to be either passed around or poured in order, generally in groups of 3 or 4. And no person should be in a position to identify any wine from the outside of the bottle now.
You will need some kind of scorecard for each person. It need be no more complicated than a scrap of paper for each with a list of bottle numbers down one side. Provide a pen or pencil for each person. Have the tasters write their names on their sheet. The person running the tasting will need a sheet that will allow the scores to be put in one place for adding up. If you made a placemat, the scores can be written near the bottom of the sheet. Those so inclined can set up a spreadsheet on their computer for greater speed and accuracy. I suggest serving food or some non-alcoholic beverage while the scores are added.
We score all wines between 70 and 100, with scores below 70 being discarded. This prevents one radical low score from badly skewing the results. All tasters have to know this in advance. But if you want to keep track of tastings over a period of time, you must stick to the same system.
Be sure to have some liquid or food that will remove toothpaste from the mouth of the taster before starting. The first wine, in my experience, is always murdered. Partly this is a form of hesitation by the tasters. Often this is due to the wonderful combination of toothpaste and the acid in the wine (try some orange juice after brushing your teeth). But it has happened in every tasting we have had.
I think that the easiest way to score for most people is to start with a standard. Pick a wine, and have it before the tasting, and define it as an "80". It should be the same general level of quality as the other wines you are tasting, or in the mid-range if tasting wines of differing levels. It is fun to put another bottle of the same wine in the main tasting and see how it scores. Tell everyone that as this one is 80, they should mentally compare the remaining wines to it. If they like the next one a little more, they should score it higher. If they think it worse, score it lower. Be aware that whatever you do there is a tendency to score wines higher as the tasting proceeds...
Add up and average the scores. I suggest unwrapping them starting with the lowest score. This is especially fun when the winemakers are in the room and tension builds. Anyone who can't stand criticism should not enter their wine in one of these tastings.
Do not be in a hurry to unveil the results. Serving coffee or snacks while you slowly unveil the winners is a time-stretching device. You simply want to keep people there a little longer to allow the effects of the alcohol to dissipate somewhat. Continually ask for guesses as to which wine the next one is, or comments about it before it is unveiled. Encourage speculation - which one was the homemade wine? which one cost the most? the least? Do not let anyone rush this part of the event. 
Try asking anyone that you think has had too much if they would mind helping you clean up after the tasting. And be sure to serve a non-alcoholic beverage while this is happening. Keep a friend. Be sure to provide (and cost into the tasting fee) lots of bread. You want people to stuff their faces. Bread will absorb alcohol in the stomach, delaying its passage into the bloodstream. And help the taster survive to taste another day...
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