Wine tasting parties have become quite trendy in recent years. A sample a variety of wines which exposes you to new wines you might not have otherwise tried and it's a great opportunity to mingle with friends while you sample.

When you are hosting a wine tasting party on the budget, be sure to let the guests know that they should bring a bottle of their own favorite wine. You might also stress that you are looking for wines other than the traditional red and white table wines that everyone is familiar with, that leader will be a good variety of different wines for everyone to taste.

If you don't have enough wine glasses for everybody, you can also ask that everyone brings their own favorite wine glass - or one for white and one for red, if they prefer. You can tell them it is so everyone can easily tell whose glass is whose. They don't need now is because you don't have enough wine glasses for everybody. But you want to be sure that you have a few extra wine glasses ready for those that inevitably will forget theirs.

Then during a wine tasting, asj each guest to tell a little bit about their wine and why they like it. Especially if not everyone knows everybody else, this is a great icebreaker. And you can pick up a guide to wine tasting from the library, so it is handy if anyone wants to look up anything in particular about the wines they are tasting.