The right order
Order when serving several wines
Anyone serving several wines over the course of an evening decides almost as much with the running order as with the selection itself. The wrong wine in the wrong spot can seem weak, even if it's excellent in its own right.
Light before heavy
A light, pale wine will nearly always lose out next to a powerful one, because the palate adjusts to intensity the way the eye adjusts to light. After a hefty red wine, even a good, delicate white can suddenly taste thin and washed out, even though there's nothing wrong with it. That's why a wine sequence almost always starts with the most restrained wine and builds up from there.
The same logic applies to alcohol content. Drinking a wine with thirteen percent before one with fifteen percent is easier on the palate than the other way around. Next to the heavier wine, the lighter one would otherwise taste almost watery. Comparing the percentages on the label already gives a useful first clue for the running order.
Dry before sweet
Residual sugar coats the palate like a layer and afterward pushes any drier wine toward sour or even bitter. A bone-dry wine tasted after a sweet dessert wine therefore comes across as harsh and unfinished, even if it would normally taste round and well-balanced.
Sweet wines should therefore always come at the end of a lineup, not simply because they often pair with dessert, but because they alter the taste of every sip that follows. Off-dry and medium-sweet wines fit sensibly in between, bridging the dry wines at the start and the truly sweet ones at the end.
Young before old, with exceptions
With wines of the same type, say two vintages from the same winery, the order from young to old usually tastes more harmonious. Young wines come across as more direct and fresh, older ones as more subtle and complex. The progression from simple to layered then works like a natural narrative, instead of suddenly feeling simple again right after a sophisticated wine.
Professionals sometimes deliberately reverse this rule at tastings to make a wine's development over the years visible, starting with the oldest vintage. For a normal evening with guests, though, the young-to-old order remains the safer choice. That way, no silent, closed-off old wine disappoints right at the start.
When to break the rules
These running orders are rules of thumb, not laws. A very rich, creamy, oak-aged white wine can certainly come before a light, cool red without the sequence falling apart. What matters is that hosts and guests understand the deviation as a deliberate choice, not an accident.
In the end, more important than any rule is an ear for your own group. Anyone who notices that a wine is coming off badly next to the previous one can take a break with water and some bread. That resets the palate before the next wine arrives.
Water and bread between wines
A sip of still water between two wines noticeably resets the palate and makes it receptive to new impressions again. Without this small pause, the impressions of several wines quickly blur into a single, unclear overall picture that's hard to pick apart afterward.
Neutral white bread works in a similar way to water, while also binding fat and tannin in the mouth and preparing the palate for the next wine. Strongly seasoned or salty bread, on the other hand, should be avoided between wines, since it leaves its own disruptive impressions that can taint the next wine. A neutral piece of apple works well too and has become standard in many tasting rooms.
When guests have different preferences
Not every group consists of wine connoisseurs who appreciate the same running order equally. Some guests prefer to stick with just one wine throughout, rather than trying several in sequence, and that's perfectly fine. A fixed order should never become a pressure to drink along with every wine.
Anyone hosting a mixed group can still stick to the basic running order and simply offer the option of staying with one particular wine, rather than automatically topping up with something new at every course. That way, the structure holds for everyone, without anyone feeling pushed into something they don't actually want.