Quick reference chart (one bottle per wine basis)
This chart assumes a standard 50-75ml tasting pour and shows how many guests one 750ml bottle comfortably covers per wine in the flight:
| Guests | Pours per bottle needed | Bottles per wine |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 pours | 1 bottle covers 10-15 pours — plenty |
| 6 | 6 pours | 1 bottle |
| 8 | 8 pours | 1 bottle |
| 10 | 10 pours | 1 bottle (tight) — consider 1.5 |
| 12 | 12 pours | 1.5 bottles per wine |
| 16 | 16 pours | 2 bottles per wine |
| 20 | 20 pours | 2 bottles per wine |
One standard 750ml bottle yields roughly 10-15 tasting-sized pours at 50-75ml each, compared to only 5 full glasses at a standard 150ml restaurant pour. This is the detail people most often get wrong when budgeting — tasting pours stretch much further than social pours.
The formula, if you want to calculate it yourself
Total volume needed per wine = guests × pour size (ml), then divide by 750 to get bottles needed for that wine.
Example: 8 guests × 60ml pour = 480ml needed. 480 ÷ 750 = 0.64, so one bottle comfortably covers it with room to spare for a top-up pour if someone wants to revisit a favorite.
How many wines should be in the flight?
5-6 wines is the sweet spot for most home and party tastings. Fewer than 4 feels thin for an evening built around tasting. More than 8 and palate fatigue sets in — most tasters, including experienced ones, lose the ability to distinguish nuance after the seventh or eighth wine, which makes the later scores less meaningful. If you want a longer event, split into two shorter flights with a food break between them rather than one long flight.
Adjusting for the occasion
- Structured tasting only (scoring, no extra drinking): use the chart above as-is — one bottle per wine covers most group sizes.
- Tasting plus a social evening after: add 1 full bottle per 4-5 guests on top of the tasting allocation, since post-tasting pours are full-size, not tasting-size.
- Bachelorette, corporate, or larger parties (12+): round up rather than down — running short mid-tasting is more disruptive than having a half-bottle left over, and leftover wine is never wasted.
Track it without guessing during the event
Once you've bought the right quantity, the harder problem is usually running the scoring itself smoothly. Wine Night lets every guest score each wine on their own phone with a 4-digit PIN — no paper sheets, no one keeping count of who's tasted what. The host adds the wine list once, and the app tracks which wine is currently being scored across every guest's device simultaneously.