Grand Cru Society

Running a tasting

Choose your evening. The steps below change to match.

Format

Pacing

1

Preparation

1 hour before

  1. First time? Practise

    On My tastings tap Try a demo: a practice tasting with 6 wines and 6 practice guests who taste by themselves while the host page is open. Join from your phone with the demo's code to play along as one more guest, and open the projector on a second screen. Delete it with the trash icon afterwards.

  2. Sign in

    grandcrusociety.com/login. Forgot it? Enter your email and tap Forgot password?

  3. Create the tasting

    On My tastings tap + New Tasting. Society editions go under the Society tastings tab. Choose Blind Tasting and tap Create.

  4. Add each bottle

    Tap Scan bottle to auto-fill and photograph the whole bottle, straight on. Then tap Studio photo, and Deep Search for the tasting profile. Fill in Brought by yourself and tap Add Wine.

  5. Choose the pacing: In flights

    Under Pacing tap In flights, then pick a split such as 5 + 5 or 4 + 4 + 2, or type your own.

  6. Set up the screen

    On the laptop or TV connected to the projector, open grandcrusociety.com/dashboard/ followed by the join code. Go full screen.

  7. Start

    Tap Start Tasting as guests arrive. The bottles appear on the screen, side by side in a random order.
Add the bottles in the order you will pour them. Wine 1 is the first glass, and the first flight holds the first glasses you add.
2

Explain to guests

5 minutes

Read this out, or say it in your own words:

“Open grandcrusociety.com/join and enter the code on the screen.

For every glass, move the slider from 5 to 10 and tap Submit. That is all you have to do.

If you want to play, guess the grapes, region, vintage and barrel. A right answer earns points, a wrong one costs a point, and a blank costs nothing.

We taste in flights. All glasses of a flight open together, so take your time within the flight.

Tonight we crown two winners: the best wine, and the best palate in the room.”

Ask everyone to keep the same phone and browser all evening. Their seat is tied to the device.
Points per glass
Grapes+5 all right · +2 to +4 some right
Region+3
Appellation+3
Vintage+4 exact · +2 one year off · +1 two off
Barrel type+3
Months in barrel+3 exact · +2 within 3 · +1 within 6
Wrong guess−1 per fieldLeft blank0Pro tasting accuracyup to +30 bonus

Unsure? Leave it blank. At the end we crown the winning wine and the best palate: the guest with the most points.

3

During the tasting

Flight by flight

  1. Pour the flight and open it

    Under Flights on the host page tap Open flight 1. All its glasses open at once.

  2. Let them taste

    Guests rate the glasses of the flight in any order. Votes coming in names who is still missing a glass.

  3. Give a last call

    Tap 60s last call for a countdown on every phone.

  4. Close and move on

    Tap Close, open flight 2. The finished flight closes, the next one opens, and the standings on the projector update.

  5. Talk about the glasses

    Each glass closes by itself once everyone has voted on it, and its scores show on the projector. On the Dashboard tab, tap a glass to see scores and notes. The wines stay secret until the end.

Repeat for every flight. After the last one, tap Close.

Someone forgot to vote? Tap Nudge next to their name under Votes coming in. Their phone shows a reminder with a soft cork pop. Guests can mute the sound with the bell at the top of their screen.
No wine is revealed before End Tasting, not even after everyone has voted. Closing a glass by itself runs from the host page, so keep it open on your phone. Prefer to close by hand? Switch off Close automatically under Settings on the host page.
A guest lost their seat? They must reopen the join link on the same phone and browser. In a new browser they start again as a new guest.
4

Show the results

The finale

  1. End the tasting

    Tap End Tasting under the glass controls on the host page and confirm. Every wine is revealed. This cannot be undone.

  2. Crown the best palate

    The projector switches to the Leaderboard by itself. The guest at the top has the most points.

  3. Crown the winning wine

    Tap the Wine Chart tab. The wines are ranked by the guests' average score, the winner on top.

  4. Ask the winners

    The top three are asked on their phone whether their name may appear on the website, the winner also for their photo if they took one. Everyone else can opt in too. Give them a minute and keep the host page open.

  5. Publish it

    Society tastings only: pick the edition, add a Photo of the evening if you like (ask the people in it first), and tap Publish results. The website shows the winning bottle and the best palate. Named guests also count on the all-time leaderboard, private tastings included.

If something goes wrong

  • An AI button shows an error. Reload the page and try again. Still failing? Send a screenshot of the full error.
  • The page looks old. On a computer press Cmd+Shift+R. On a phone, open a private tab.
  • A guest cannot join. Check the code. It stops working once the tasting has ended.
  • No bottles on the screen. The tasting must be started, and every wine needs a photo.