Tasting and Music
We all know that a “proper” wine tasting should be conducted with good lighting, using stemmed glassware to minimize fingerprints, neutral backgrounds, no odors, and so on. Our senses of sight, smell, and taste must be pure to create the ideal environment to analyze our fine liquid specimen so we can conclude that “we like it” 
But if you are hosting a small tasting for friends, its sort of strange to have silence as people swirl, taste, and potentially spit; - I do like giving my friends nicknames based on the their spitting noises, but this is a wine tasting and not the Old West.
I’m a big fan of music. It comes with the territory for a once Internet programmer/poser DJ spinner turned wine studies graduate. Music is always playing in my apartment, even during wine tastings, though there are some guidelines I’d like to share with you.
Make the music an ambient noise and not the focus of the evening. If someone has to talk louder to be heard, turn down the music.
Stay away from Beyonce (and I mean no disrespect to Beyonce by any means!) Any music with lyrics can turn your sophisticated wine tasting into a karaoke bar faster than you can finish that first taste. What music doesn’t have lyrics? There’s classical; - but then you’d be right out of the movie American Beauty; - jazz; - which I do like to have on from time to time but not all jazz is “good” for tasting wine; - and then my favorite, electronic.
Electronic music and wine - how can they “blend” well you might ask? Well, a long time friend of WineFetch is going to show you what I’m talking about. Ben Poe is a fantastic up-and-coming DJ/producer in NYC and I proudly play his music at my tastings to much applause. Here is one of my favorite mixes to play during a wine tasting. It starts off with an original song by Ben Poe, which is light and ethereal sounding, perfect for your starting whites. Over the next 30 minutes, the music slowly builds put to a fuller sound, just when you start your cabernets (and when everyone is a little sloshed).
Enjoy the tunes and look for more music from Ben Poe!
http://www.winefetch.com/music/nv4_mix.mp3
If you want to support Ben Poe, you can view his website at http://benpoe.com/