A blind tasting at home is not an exam. It is the most reliable way to find out whether you like a wine or its label, and it needs about twenty minutes of preparation.
Change one thing, not everything
A tasting where the wines differ in grape, country, vintage and price produces opinions rather than comparisons. Pick a single variable and hold the rest steady. One grape from four countries. One producer across four vintages. One region at three price points. Supermarket against merchant, same grape, same year.
The price comparison is the most entertaining and the most useful, because it is the one that changes what you buy afterwards. It is also the one that most often embarrasses the person who chose the wines, which is part of the appeal.
Bag and number before anyone arrives
Wrap the bottles or use bags, number them, and write down the key somewhere the guests will not see it. Do this alone and early. Doing it while people watch, or asking a guest to be the one who knows, wastes a bottle and one participant.
Pour in a fixed order and keep it: lighter before fuller, dry before sweet, and if in doubt, whites before reds. Use the same glass shape for everything. Matching glasses matter more than expensive ones.
Everyone writes before anyone speaks
This is the only rule that really matters. The first opinion spoken aloud becomes everyone else opinion, and the tasting is over as a comparison. Two minutes of silence per wine is enough.
Wine number: Color: Smell, in three words: Taste, in three words: Would I drink a glass: yes / no: Would I buy a bottle: yes / no: Rank against the others:
Two columns carry the whole sheet: would I drink a glass, and would I buy a bottle. Numeric scores out of a hundred are for people who taste professionally and calibrate against each other. Ranking plus those two questions gives you everything you can actually act on.
The reveal, and the part worth keeping
Reveal in tasting order, then put the prices next to the ranking. Look for two things: the wine that beat its price, and the wine that only wins when people can see the label. Both are purchase decisions for the next twelve months.
Write the result against the wines afterwards while it is fresh. The tasting note format is short enough to fill in at the table, and for the bottles you did not own, the wish list capture keeps them findable without adding them to your count.
Practical amounts
A 750 ml bottle gives about fifteen 50 ml tasting pours, so one bottle per wine serves a table of six comfortably with something left to go back to. Provide water, plain bread and somewhere to pour away what people do not finish. Offer the option to spit without making a ceremony of it.
If the tasting turns into dinner, which it usually does, plan the meal wine separately rather than counting on what is left. The party arithmetic covers that number.