Virtual Game of SOMM Blinders

It's 2020 and we're in the middle of a pandemic. You might be in lockdown, or there might be strict rules where you are about who you can and can't see. So how do you have wine nights with your friends? For that matter, how do you have a blind tasting game night with friends? 

We've been thinking about this and we've come up with a way to bring Blinders to you at home. There are a few obstacles, like making sure everyone has the same wine, and their own deck of Blinders, but nothing we can't handle.

It's best if we can team up with a liquor store, a winery or a wine club, to bundle up packages with a few blind wines and a deck of Blinders for people to purchase online. This is what we did with The Wine Spot in Ohio. Selling a bundle of two blind wines and a deck, we ensured that all our attendees had the same bottles and each a deck of cards, and from that point it was game on.

Taking turns on our group call according to the order on our host's screen we each poured our own wine, dealt our cards and then discarded cards before picking up new ones. What was different to a game played in person was the notion of the 'Steal a Card', which we treated as jokers and skipped. Usually, you would pick a random card out of someone else's hand instead of picking up from the deck, but that's a bit hard to do through a computer screen! So we put those to the side for this game. We also picked up from the deck on every turn, instead of having the option to pick up from the discard pile because usually there would be more cards in there than just your own!

To increase the engagement and the fun, we told each other what we were discarding, allowing for remarks from other players about whether we were on the right track or not, according to them of course. Each round was smooth - and so was the wine! - and we ended up with quite close scores, with people coming away from a night of fun with a bit of extra wine knowledge.

If you're a winery, wine club, or liquor store and you're interested in creating these bundles to sell to your customers and to have an event of your own, feel free to get in touch with Diana, our Partnerships Manager at dianacavill@sommtv.com. 

Or, if you're wanting a virtual game with friends, family or for your office, you can also get in touch with Diana at dianacavill@sommtv.com and she'll help you get something organized with your local liquor store - or multiple if you're from various states or countries!