Your First Wine Tasting: What Actually Happens (and Why You Needn't Worry)

A friend of mine nearly didn't go to her first wine tasting because she was worried everyone would be able to tell she didn't know anything. She spent the whole afternoon beforehand watching videos about how to swirl a glass. Then she got there, and it was just a room full of people drinking nice wine and chatting. Nobody tested her on anything. She had a lovely time.

I think about that a lot, because the nerves are so common and so unnecessary. So if you've got one booked and you're quietly dreading it, this is for you.

What actually happens

Here's the whole thing, start to finish. You turn up. Someone - usually whoever's running it, and they're almost always lovely - pours you a small amount of wine and tells you a bit about it. You drink it. They pour the next one. Somewhere in the middle there's often bread or cheese. You chat to whoever's next to you. Then you go home having drunk maybe five or six wines you'd never have tried otherwise.

That's it. That's the format. It's not an exam and there's no bit at the end where they check your notes.

The stuff you're actually worried about

Let me just go through the fears, because I had all of them too.

You don't need to know anything. Genuinely nothing. The whole point of a tasting is that someone who knows the wine walks you through it. Turning up knowing a lot would almost defeat the purpose. The best question you can ask is "what am I meant to be noticing here" and any decent host will light up, because that's the thing they actually want to talk about.

You don't have to detect blackberry, leather and a hint of wet gravel. If you taste a wine and think "yeah, that's nice, quite fruity", that is a completely valid tasting note. The flowery descriptions are just people reaching for words to pin down a smell, and half of them are guessing too. Trust me on this one.

The swirling and the spitting are optional. Swirling gets more smell out of the glass, which does genuinely help, but if you slop it everywhere on your first go nobody minds. And the spittoon is there for a reason - at a tasting with a dozen wines, spitting is normal and sensible, not rude. Or don't. Your evening.

You don't have to buy anything. Some tastings are run by shops hoping you'll pick up a bottle, and that's fair enough, but there's never any pressure and walking out empty-handed is completely fine.

What to wear, and other small logistics

Wear whatever you'd wear to a nice-ish pub. Maybe avoid a white top if you're clumsy like me, and go easy on strong perfume or aftershave because it genuinely messes with your ability to smell the wine (and everyone else's). That's about the extent of the rules.

Eat something beforehand. Tasting five or six wines on an empty stomach sneaks up on you. And if you're driving, that spittoon suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Which one should you go to?

For a first one, I'd look for something billed as an introduction, or a themed evening around a country or a style - "wines of Spain", "an introduction to natural wine", that sort of thing. A tight theme gives the evening a shape and gives you something to hang the wines onto, which is easier than a firehose of unrelated bottles.

Beyond that, just pick one that's near you and sounds fun. That's the entire filter. You can browse what's on across the UK here, or find one in London, Bristol, Manchester or wherever you happen to be.

Honestly, the hardest part is the booking. Everything after that is just a nice evening drinking wine with people who also like wine. Go.

Dan