Everyone knows what March Madness is. Many of us participate and fill out a bracket each year selecting teams to move to the next round. But has anyone done this with wine?

I invited several coworkers over a few weeks ago – a little behind in getting this awesome party out there. We had 10 place settings, some cheese boards and 8 wines on the bracket. Below you can see the bottles lines up, wrapped in black paper and numbered- all ready to go!

For the party. Grab bottles 1 & 2 and pour a small sample. No more than a few good sips per person of each wine. allow table talk about the wines- it’s fun to note that why you may not like #1 is the reason your neighbor actually likes it!

After everyone has sampled both- vote! We had a short and a tall glass as you can see and we held up the glass of the wine we liked better. The ‘winning’ wine of the round moves on, KEEP the black paper on that bottle. The ‘loosing’ wine gets unveiled. I shared where the wine was purchased and the price range of the bottle, in addition to brand, region, and any writing on the bottle about the wine.

Next up 3 & 4. Repeat pouring, tasting, and bantering. And another vote! And then another unveiling.

Then 5 & 6. And last up on this first round is 7 & 8. 4 wines should have been unveiled and 4 wines are still anonymous.

We took a small break and allowed time for anyone to roam, bathroom break, and fill up their plate as we had more food on the buffet as well as on the table itself.

Ding ding. Time for round two. Ooo shucks- the bell is boxing huh!

For us it was wine bottle 2 vs 4 followed by 5 vs 7. Unveil the ‘loosers’ again. And the finalist round for us was 2 vs 7.

#2 and the ‘winner’ was from Thief Wine and #7 is the Apothic Red blend

After the final round round unveil the remaining two bottles. It’s an interesting discussion for us the final two bottles were a $10-$15 bottle and a $25-$30 bottle. So one of the cheapest vs the 3rd most expensive on our bracket.

#2 was the winner- a wine from Theif Wine called the Convert and #7 was the Apothic Red available at most grocery stores.