Taste. Judge. Quietly Gloat.
An Establishment for Purposes That Seemed Reasonable at the Time
Your private cellar journal. Your blind tasting party host. Your alibi when someone asks why there are seventeen open bottles on the kitchen table. Finally, an app that understands your priorities.
† No wine was harmed in the making of this website. Several were, however, consumed.
"The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars."
— Benjamin Franklin, diplomat, inventor, and revolutionary whose contributions to civilisation were not limited to great quotes.
What You Shall Receive
Log every bottle you've had the pleasure — or the misfortune — of encountering. Grape, region, vintage, producer, your unfiltered impressions.
Because "the good one with the deer on the label" is no way to order wine -- even at Chili's.
Over time, patterns surface. You gravitate toward Rhône. You reliably loathe anything described as "approachable." The data illuminates what you already suspected about yourself.
You have been rating Malbec a 4 for three years. This is who you are now.
See whose ratings align. Find out who the contrarian is. Discover that Margaret, who claims to love Cabs, scored La Crema Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County a two. Confront Margaret.
Friendships have survived this. Most of them.
Create an event, conceal the labels, and let your associates render judgment in blissful ignorance. No reputation. No deference. Just what's in the glass. Scores are tallied, a winner declared, and someone has to live with having brought the worst bottle.
The $4 Trader Joe's bottle has won before. We shall not speak of it.
Build your House through referrals. Every member you bring in becomes a vassal, and vassals are generous to their patrons — a percentage of their dues flows upward, as is traditional. Tend to your House with care. Allegiances, like wine preferences, are subject to change.
A good liege pours generously. Allegiances shift around the second bottle. These facts are related.
Every grape has a provenance. Every region has an argument. The Atlas is your reference library for both — producers, vintages, appellations, and the kind of context that makes you considerably more interesting at dinner, or at least harder to ignore.
Context for the curious. Ammunition for the insufferable.
The Main Event
Blind tasting parties are among the finest social inventions of the modern age, and we include the dishwasher in that assessment. Without labels, the snobbery dissolves. The $12 bottle from the corner shop can — and does — beat the Grand Cru. The look on someone's face when they discover they gave their own wine a four is, genuinely, irreplaceable.
House of Winos handles the logistics so you may focus on the important business of pouring, sipping, and rendering judgment.
"I said it had secondary notes of cedar and tobacco. It was from Walgreens. I stand by my assessment."
— A Guest, Maintaining Dignity
The Method
On the Importance of Records
Know your wines before others judge them. Log every bottle — grape, region, vintage, your honest impressions. Your cellar is your arsenal. Those who arrive prepared do not always win. But those who arrive unprepared almost never do.
Your cellar accumulates quietly, like sediment.
Create an event. Set the theme — Burgundy, natural wines, things under $20, whatever the group can agree on, which is itself an achievement. Everyone brings a bottle. Labels get concealed.
Egos, temporarily suspended.
Each guest scores on their phone in our House of Winos App, anonymously, without knowing who brought what. This is the moment where people unknowingly reveal they actually prefer the cheap one. It is character-building.
Revelation is pending.
The host reveals all — labels, scores, who brought what, who said what. Reputations are made. Assumptions collapse. Someone discovers they gave their own wine a one. The ensuing discussion is, statistically speaking, the best part of the evening.
The labels emerge. The excuses begin.
A name is read. A bottle is revealed. Someone looks insufferably pleased with themselves, and they have earned it. The winner takes the spoils — bragging rights, the grape pick for next time, or whatever the house has staked. Magnanimity is expected. It rarely materialises.
A rematch is invariably scheduled before anyone goes home.
Dispatches from the Field
I now know more about my own palate than I know about my children's schedules. This is not something I'm proud of, but it is what it is.
We discovered that our group unanimously preferred a wine that cost less than our cheese board. We have not recovered. The cheese board has not been forgiven.
My husband described a Sancerre as "a bit flat." He scored it highest. I have not decided what to do with this information, but I am cataloguing it carefully.
The Waitlist Is Now Open
We are presently completing the last preparations. Join the list and we shall alert you the moment the doors open — discreetly, by electronic mail, like civilised people.
† No correspondence shall be sold. No newsletters dispatched unnecessarily. You have our word, for whatever that is worth.
