Wine is a sophisticated tipple usually enjoyed with dinner or in moderation with family and friends. Drinking games are usually quite the opposite, but wine and drinking games do not have to be mutually exclusive. The truth is that while wine might not be the first tipple you think of when playing drinking games, it can be the perfect accompaniment.
In fact, drinking games with wine are nothing new. One of Italy’s most popular and historic drinking games had refreshingly simple rules. Participants would drink as much wine as possible before stopping at regular intervals to insult each other. To add a little jeopardy, each player was also armed with a knife, which did tend to keep things lively.
Thankfully, the stakes in these drinking games are no quite so high, but they are still a lot of fun...
1. Creating ‘house rules’
If you’re planning a get together with friends then a few house rules can add an extra element to the evening. The first step is to announce that every 30 minutes, a new house rule will be created and any guests who break that rule will be eliminated from the game. The rules should be fun and easy to enforce. Something like “no carrying your wine glass in your right hand” is a good place to start. You can then introduce more complicated house rules as the evening progresses until you are left with a final victor who receives a nice bottle of wine as a prize.
2. The wine tasting challenge
Everyone likes to think they know their stuff when it comes to wine, but very few people actually do. A simple game to test that knowledge is to ask each of your guests to taste several different glasses of wine. They must then guess the region the wine was produced in, the wine type, its rating and its average price. The closest wins a bottle of their favourite wine to enjoy at home.
3. Wine categories
The categories game is a simple way to test general knowledge. To get started, everyone gathers around and a category is chosen, in this case, that category is types of wine. Each player then has five seconds to name a type of wine, e.g. “Chardonnay”, “Merlot” etc. Anyone who can’t name a type of wine is out. The winner is the wine expert left at the end.
4. Slap the bag
If you’re looking for a timeless, incredibly sophisticated wine game then ‘slap the bag’ is undoubtedly it. All you need for hours of fun is to buy a box of wine, preferably white, to reduce the stains. Then pull out the bag containing the wine and take it in turns to sip (glug) the wine right out of the spigot. The catch is that while sipping the wine, you also have to slap the bag, which will either result in wine going all over the floor or down your throat. You then pass the bag on to the next player.
5. Wine checkers
Now you’re talking! All you need for this two-player classic are 24 shot glasses (you can always buy plastic glasses on the cheap), one bottle of red wine, one bottle of white and a checkers board. You then fill 12 shot glasses with red wine and 12 with white. These, as you’ve probably guessed, are your checkers pieces. The difference between this and a normal game of checkers is that if you lose a piece, you have to drink the wine. On the other hand, if a piece gets ‘kinged’, your opponent has to drink the wine before refilling the glass. You can mark the kinged pieces with a straw, cocktail umbrella or whatever the hell you like.
