Wine & Cheese Evening: How to Run One in Your Pub

Part of the Autumn Pub Playbook — a September-to-November plan for filling your pub.

A wine and cheese evening is one of the easiest ways to lift spend per head, fill a quiet midweek, and turn wine from the dusty afterthought behind your bar into something your regulars actually look forward to. Put a few good wines next to a proper cheese board, charge a fair ticket, and you've got a cheese and wine night that feels like an occasion without costing you a fortune to put on. And no, you don't need a sommelier, a white tablecloth, or a single bit of jargon.

Wine is the quiet underperformer behind most pub bars. The cellar work is sorted, the beer range gets all the attention, and the wine just sits there on a tired list, selling the same two house options to people who'd happily spend more if you gave them a reason to. Cheese is the reason. It makes the wine make sense, it slows the drinking down, and it turns "a few samples" into a sit-down evening people will book a table for.

This is the click-out guide from the full Autumn Pub Playbook. Autumn is the moment to fix your wine offer: you've got a refreshed list going in before the party season, the nights are drawing in, and people are back to wanting somewhere warm to sit with a proper glass of something and a bit of cheese.

Why a wine and cheese night works when wine alone doesn't

Two things hold pub wine back, and neither is the wine itself.

The first is that it feels formal. Drinkers worry they'll pick "wrong", mispronounce something, or look daft in front of their mates, so they default to the house red and never trade up. The second is that the list is invisible. It's buried in a menu, printed too small, or stuck on a shelf nobody reads. If people can't see it and don't feel confident choosing from it, they won't.

Adding cheese fixes both, and adds a third pull on top. Cheese makes the night social and a bit indulgent, so the fear drops away. It puts your range right in front of people in a way they can taste, not just squint at. And it gives you a second thing to sell — a board people will happily pay for, on a night they'd otherwise be at home.

There's a tailwind here too. The themes coming out of the London Wine Fair in May 2026, as reported by the Morning Advertiser, were all about lighter reds, rosé, cans and kegged wine, English wine, and local, sustainable sourcing, with "taste before you buy" running through the lot. Low and no wine is a growing category as well. In other words, drinkers want to try before they commit, and they're curious about what's in the glass. A wine and cheese evening is exactly that instinct made into an event.

Make wine easy to choose

Before you run a single event, sort the everyday stuff. A tasting brings people in; a clear, confident wine offer is what keeps them spending once the event is over.

Make it visible. Get your wines somewhere people actually look: a clean menu, a tidy back-bar display, a chalkboard by the door. If you're rethinking the layout, our guide to pub drinks menu design walks through it properly.

Ditch the jargon. Nobody knows what "notes of cassis and a long finish" means, and the people who do don't need telling. Use plain-English descriptions instead:

• "Juicy and easy" for a soft, crowd-pleasing red
• "Crisp and dry" for a sharp white
• "Big and warming" for a full-bodied red
• "Light and fresh" for a pale rosé or a delicate white

Run a weekly staff pick. One wine, chalked up, with a one-line reason: "Sarah's pick: juicy Spanish red, perfect with the burger." It gives staff something easy to recommend and gives customers permission to try something new. Rotate it weekly so regulars come back to see what's next.

Get these basics right and your wine sales lift before you've even sold a ticket.

How to host a wine tasting: the £10 flight format

Here's the format we'd point any pub towards. It's deliberately simple, because the simple version is the one you'll actually run twice. This is the wine half of the evening; the cheese board comes next, and the two run together.

The format. Three small tastes, served as a flight, plus a scorecard. Pour around 50ml of each so people can compare them side by side without anyone falling off their stool. A flight of three contrasting wines, say a crisp white, a light red and something fuller, gives guests an easy story to follow — and a natural order to pair cheeses against.

The scorecard. A single printed sheet with space to mark each wine out of five and scribble a word or two. It does three jobs: it gives people something to do, it sparks chat between tables, and it quietly tells you which wines to push afterwards.

Pricing and ticketing. Charge around £10 to £15 a head and sell tickets in advance so people commit and you know your numbers. The trick is to get a supplier to part-fund the wine; most reps will happily provide stock, glassware and point-of-sale for the exposure, which lets you keep the ticket low and your margin healthy. Pop a "£3 off any bottle tonight" voucher on each scorecard and you'll recover plenty on the back of it.

The run-sheet. Keep it on one page:

1. Welcome and a glass of something easy as people arrive (15 mins)
2. Wine one with its cheese: pour, two minutes of patter, let them taste and score (10 mins)
3. Wine two with its cheese: same again (10 mins)
4. Wine three with its cheese: same again (10 mins)
5. Open the bar for full glasses and bottles, hand out vouchers, take the next booking (the rest of the night)

Staffing and timing. One confident host to run the talking, plus your normal bar cover. Allow around an hour for the structured part, then let it roll into a normal evening where people buy the wines they liked. That after-party is where the real money lands.

A responsible word while we're here: run your Challenge 25 policy exactly as any other night, serve each wine at the right temperature (whites and rosé properly chilled, reds cool rather than warm), and use clean, polished glassware. Good glasses make cheap wine taste better and make the whole thing feel like an occasion.

Build a simple cheese pairing board

The cheese is what turns a tasting into an evening. You don't need a cheesemonger's counter or anything clever — three or four cheeses, a bit of charcuterie, and a few bits to go alongside. The job is to give each wine a partner that makes both taste better.

The trick is matching weight with weight. A delicate wine gets a delicate cheese; a big wine gets something strong enough to stand up to it. Run them lightest to heaviest, the same order as your wine flight, and the pairings tell a little story as the night goes on.

A board that mirrors a classic three-wine flight:

• Crisp white → soft goat's cheese. The fresh acidity in the wine cuts through the tang of the cheese, and each makes the other taste cleaner. A safe, lovely opener.
• Juicy easy red → mild cheddar or charcuterie. A crowd-pleaser pairing. A slice of salami or a wedge of decent cheddar sits happily with a soft, fruity red and asks nothing difficult of anyone.
• Big, warming red → strong blue or aged cheddar. This is where it gets fun. A punchy blue or a sharp mature cheddar has the guts to match a full red, and a square of dark chocolate alongside the biggest wine finishes the board on a high.

Round it out with crackers, a few grapes, some chutney or quince, and oatcakes for anyone avoiding wheat. Lay it out generously and it photographs beautifully, which does half your marketing for the next one.

Go local where you can. A British cheese from a maker down the road is a genuine selling point and a story your staff can tell. "This blue's from a farm twenty minutes away" beats any label. Local cheese ties in neatly with the English wine your customers are already curious about, and it's the kind of detail the chain down the road simply can't be bothered with. Your regular wholesaler will carry plenty, but it's worth a call to a nearby dairy or farm shop — many will do a trade price and some will happily send someone along to talk about the cheese, the same way a wine rep would.

How to price the cheese. Keep the maths simple. Work out what the board costs you per head, treble it, and you're in roughly the right place for a healthy margin (cheese and charcuterie carry well, so don't undersell it). You've got two easy ways to charge:

• Bundle it into the ticket. Fold the board cost into your £10 to £15 price so guests get wine and cheese for one number. Cleaner to sell, and nobody's doing sums on the night.
• Sell boards on the side. Keep the tasting ticket lean and offer sharing boards at £8 to £12 to add to the table. Good for groups, and the boards keep selling long after the structured bit ends.

Either way, put a couple of cheese and charcuterie boards on your everyday menu afterwards. You've just proved people will buy them, so don't let that walk out the door with the empty glasses.

Wine words made easy

Your staff don't need a qualification. They need a handful of honest phrases they can say with a straight face. Print this, stick it by the till, and you're sorted:

• Tannin is the dry, grippy feeling in big reds, like over-stewed tea. "This one's got a bit of grip to it."
• Body is how heavy it feels in the mouth. Light, medium or full. "It's a fuller one, good with the strong cheese."
• Crisp means fresh and sharp, usually a white. "Crisp and clean, lovely with the goat's cheese."
• Dry vs sweet is just how much sugar you can taste. Most table wine is dry. "Bone dry, this one."
• Easy-drinking is the most useful phrase you own. It means soft, no rough edges, hard to dislike. "It's just an easy Tuesday red."

The golden rule: if a customer asks what a wine's like, answer in food. "It's great with the blue cheese" or "have it with a curry" beats any tasting note. People understand their dinner far better than they understand wine.

Other premium serve moments

A wine and cheese night doesn't have to stand alone. Autumn is full of drinks-led hooks you can hang a premium serve on, the same way you would a wine evening. These are the national drinks days worth a look — each one a single featured serve rather than a whole event:

• National Vodka Day (4 October) for a small batch of proper martinis or a signature serve
• A gin tasting evening around International Gin & Tonic Day (19 October) — a perfect-serve flight is gin's answer to the wine flight, and it runs on exactly the same format: three contrasting gins, a scorecard, a garnish each, and a supplier glad to part-fund it
• Champagne Friday or a Fizz Weekend heading into party-booking season, when people are already in the mood to treat themselves

And don't forget the ones drinking less. A good alcohol-free pour deserves the same care as a fine wine, so it's worth reading your wine evening alongside our Sober October low-and-no guide — a confident no/low option means nobody at the table feels left out of the occasion. You'll find the full calendar of all this in the full Autumn Pub Playbook. The point is the same throughout: give people a reason to trade up from the usual, and most of them happily will.

Turning a tasting into repeat bookings

A one-off night is nice. A wine and cheese evening that feeds your diary is a business asset. The difference is what you do in the last ten minutes.

Capture the next date. Before anyone leaves, announce the next one and take bookings on the spot. "Same night next month, the theme's English wine and local cheese, who's in?" A half-full room signs up there and then.

Sell gift vouchers. A wine and cheese night for two makes an easy, low-faff gift, and it's pre-paid trade that pulls new faces through your door. Have a few ready behind the bar, especially as Christmas nears.

Upsell the Christmas party. The people at your tasting are exactly the ones who'll book a festive table. Ask them while they're relaxed and happy: "We do a cracking Christmas menu, shall I put your name down for a date?" Warm room, warm ask, easy yes.

This is the same habit that turns any pub event into a fixture. We talk about it across the events guides, and it works because the next booking is always easiest to get from someone who's enjoying the current one.

At The Anchor in Stanwell Moor, the events that became fixtures are the ones where we got the next date in the diary before the room emptied. Wine and cheese nights are no different.

Your first move

Don't plan a wine programme. Plan one evening.

1. Ring your wine rep this week and ask what they'll part-fund for a wine and cheese evening.
2. Pick three contrasting wines, a cheese to partner each, and a quiet midweek night.
3. Set a ticket price around £10 to £15 (board included), and start promoting three weeks out on the "taste before you buy" angle.
4. Run it, take the next booking before everyone leaves, and tidy up your everyday wine list and cheese boards while it's fresh in your mind.

Do that once and you'll wonder why wine ever sat quiet behind your bar.

If you'd like a hand building a wine offer that actually sells, or turning a one-off night into a regular earner, that's the kind of thing we help with at Orange Jelly. Have a look at how we work with pubs.

FAQs

How do I run a wine and cheese evening in my pub? Pair three small wine tastes with a simple cheese and charcuterie board, served as a flight people can compare side by side. Charge around £10 to £15 a head, get your wine supplier to part-fund the wine, give every guest a scorecard, and match each wine to one cheese so the pairing tells a little story. Take the next booking before the room empties.

How much should I charge for a wine and cheese night? Around £10 to £15 per person for three small wine tastes plus a cheese board works well, and feels like an evening out rather than a sample. If your supplier part-funds the wine, you can keep the ticket low and still protect your margin. Add a discount voucher towards a bottle on the night to recover the rest.

What cheese goes with what wine? Keep it simple. A crisp white loves a soft, tangy goat's cheese; a juicy easy red goes with a mild cheddar or a slice of charcuterie; a big, fuller red stands up to a strong blue or a hard, aged cheddar. Match weight with weight, put the lightest pairing first, and a square of dark chocolate finishes the board nicely with the biggest red.

How many wines should a tasting include? Three is the sweet spot for a relaxed pub night, served as a flight of small pours people can compare side by side. Five is the most you should attempt without it dragging or palates tiring. Always leave room for guests to buy a full glass or bottle of their favourite afterwards.

Do I need a sommelier to host a wine tasting? No. You need a clear running order and someone confident enough to talk for a couple of minutes about each wine and cheese, which is something most reps will happily coach you on. A short crib sheet of plain-English tasting words is plenty. Honest enthusiasm beats jargon every time.