Wine tasting invitations
I make custom wine tasting invitations, personalised from an existing design for $65 or designed from scratch, then deliver everything as digital files.
A tasting is the rare gathering where arriving late genuinely ruins it, because the wines are poured in a deliberate order.
$65
Your details set by hand, usually back the same day. $145 to rebuild it in your own colours.
Most party invitations can afford a soft start time. A tasting cannot. The bottles are opened in sequence, usually light to heavy, and a guest who walks in during the fourth pour has missed the structure the whole evening was built on. So the invitation says a start time and means it, and the wording should make that plain without being severe. "Pouring begins at seven, so please come a little before" does the job in one line.
The second thing this invitation has to carry is money, which most hosts find awkward and then handle badly. If there is a sommelier, a shop-led tasting, or a case bought for the evening, there is a cost per person and it belongs on the card in plain type. Nobody minds a stated figure. What people mind is discovering it at the door. The other model is each guest bringing a bottle to a brief, and that brief needs to be specific enough to be useful: a region, a grape, a price ceiling, or a year.
Then there is the part hosts skip. This is an event whose entire purpose is drinking, often six or eight pours, and everyone is driving home from somebody's house. Putting the practical answer on the invitation, a rideshare note, a spare room offered, a nearby hotel, is not fussy. It is the single most useful line on the card and it is the one people remember you for.
What changes for this one
Restraint does most of the work here: a lot of space, one accent, type that would look at home on a wine list. If there is a flight, the wines can be listed on the back or on a matching menu card, which doubles as the thing guests write notes on during the evening. The cost per person sits with the practical details, never in the decorative half.
When to send
Three to four weeks out. If guests are bringing bottles to a brief, they need a weekend to shop properly, and if you are hiring a sommelier or booking a shop-led tasting you need a headcount well before that.
Colours that work
Deep and low-lit. Oxblood with bone, charcoal with brass, or a dark olive. It should look like the room at eight in the evening rather than a vineyard in daylight.
Questions people ask about wine tasting invitations
How do we ask guests to contribute to the cost?
State the figure per person on the invitation, in ordinary type, next to the time. A stated cost is normal for a tasting. A cost revealed at the door is the thing that makes an evening awkward.
Should we ask everyone to bring a bottle instead?
It works well, provided the brief is specific. "Bring a red" gets you six of the same thing. A region, a grape, or a price ceiling gets you a flight that actually compares.
How firm should the start time be?
Firm, and say why. The pours run in order, so a line like "pouring begins at seven" tells guests it is a real time without making it sound like a rule.
Can you design tasting notes or a menu to match?
Yes. A matching card listing the flight, with space to write, is the piece guests keep. It sits under day-of event paper.
210
US searches a month for wine tasting invitations, measured rather than guessed.
- dinner party invitation · 1,900/mo
- game night invitation · 720/mo
How to have this made
Custom invitation design
Designed from nothing for one event. No template underneath.
From $285
Day-of event paper
Menus, place cards, table numbers, programs and signage.
From $95
Digital and paperless invitations
Designed to be texted, emailed or posted. Not an Evite template.
From $225
Start with a First Look
$45 for one finished concept designed for your event, back in three days. It comes off whatever you book, and if you do not love it you keep the file and owe nothing.