Wine party questions alcohol?

Question

I'm planning a wine party and need some suggestions. Whats a creative way to make invitations? I'm planning on inviting about 5 people, how much cheese and crackers will be enough? Because I'm serving alcohol, I also want to serve a heavier food and a few extra munchies. Is it okay to ask people to bring their favorite wine or one they want to try? I plan to have extra bottles on hand. Other then discussing the wine and having girl talk, do you know any fun games we can play (we're between 23-30 y/o). Suggestions please!!!

Answer 1

Have the invitations in the shape of a wine glass with the person name on the "wine tag" on the stem.
In some way in the wording of the invite incorporate the fact that you will have wine but they can feel free to bring their favorite wine to share and discuss.

Answer 2

Wow!!! People are strange!! I would never be offended if someone asked me to bring a bottle of wine to a party, but oh well!! Here is my suggestion!!

On the invitations, if you are mailing them, and there are only going to be about five or six of you, you should mail each person their own wine glass tag. You can get a set of six pretty much anywhere, you can have them be little cheese wedges or whatever, but attach them to the invite, and then have them bring theirs to the party. That way, you won't mix up any glasses, and they have something fun to take home with them!!

As far as asking people to bring a bottle of wine, tell them on the invite that if they want to bring their favorite bottle of wine, that you would appreciate it!! Then you are having them decide, plus, I would much rather try what people think is great, then have to go to the liquor store and pick out bottles that I think sound or look good, to have them not!!

I have been to a few friends houses for little get togethers like this and we have a blast with the Scene It games on DVD!! Everyone can get involved, they are really simple as all you really have to do is put the dvd in and press play!! You can get these for movies, television, whatever!! It's a blast!!

Have a great time!!!

Answer 3

If it's ment to be a friendly get together, crackers, cheeses, and other light appitizers are wonderful. However, you do need to plan everything out so the wine won't over power the food and vise versa. Brie and water crackers with an Italian red is just as silly as pairing Buffalo wings with a German white. Personally, I would set up stations 2-3 food choices with a particular wine.
2 rules of thumb when dealing with wine and food
1) Light food goes with light wine and heavy food goes with heavy wine. There are heavy whites and light reds so watch out.
2) With appitizers 10-15 bite-sized peices per person is the industry norm, weither it is 5 peices of 3 dishes or 1 peice of 10 dishes. Plan accordingly, as some people will like one thing better than another always make extra.
Have water on hand, because people will want to change wines or get the taste of a "bad pairing" out of their system.
As for games, I think it would be fun to do trivia about the location of the wines you will be drinking, or plan a imaginary trips to the winery and area. Or even set aside a bottle or two to have a wine tasting.
Wine tastings are fun and easy. You should be able to find information on how to run a tasting on the web. I'm not sure I could properly discribe it here, but trust me they are fun.

Answer 4

If people bring their own bottle, then it will be almost impossible to plan the best foods to serve as a compliment to them. Plus it is kind of tacky to ask people to bring their own to your party. If you are hosting, you should provide the refreshments.

If you want the experience to be educational, then you should avoid serving completely different wines. Better to serve a group of wines with something in common, so they may be discussed and compared as peers, not apples to oranges.

Possible themes coud be:

1) wines from different countries all made from the same grape
2) wines all from the same vintage and same region
3) A duel betwen two regions using similar grapes: such as red Burgundy vs. California Pinot Noir, or California Pinot Noir vs. Oregon Pinot Noir
4) wines from one producer but a series of different vintages

Be sure to provide pens and notepads for writing down tasting notes. If you cover the labels with a paper towel, you can have fun trying guess if a wine is merlot or cabernet, etc. But only bother to do this if your friends are very knowledgable because it is hard!

Answer 5

First off, i wouldnt ask anyone to bring anything. Unless you need the help. A wine party would be AWESOME with fondue. Go get 2fondue sets for like 30bucks. Usually with the sets you get the recipies as well. You should have two because one for the munchies and one for the desert.

With the cheese fondue don't be fooled, you dont just have to dip bread in it. You can make sausage (i saw a great recipe on rachel ray's show last week that actually had a dry white wine mixed with the cheese to make the fondue) Heres the recipe. And you can dip anything in it! Go online and google some cool stuff for that. Or just pick your favorite cheese covered foods.

3/4 pound Gruyère cheese, grated
1/2 pound Swiss Emmentaler cheese, grated
3/4 pound Appenzeller cheese, grated
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 garlic clove, halved
1 to 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground white pepper
Crusty bread, cubed and skewered

1. In a large bowl, toss the cheeses with the cornstarch. Rub the inside of a 3-quart fondue pot with the garlic; discard.
2. In the fondue pot, heat 1 cup wine with the lemon juice over medium-low heat until steaming but not yet simmering. Stir in the cheese mixture, 1 handful at a time, and cook until melted. If the fondue is too thick, gradually stir in up to 1/2 cup more wine. Season to taste with white pepper. Serve with the bread cubes.

With that i would go to the local liquor store (one with a good wine selection) and talk to the people that work there. Tell them your budget and how many bottles you want.

With 5 people i would get:
1 merlot (red)
1 Pinot Nior (red)
1 Chardonnay (white)
1 Sauvingnon Blanc (white)
1 Port (desert)
If you think that you will drink more, double up on the chardonay and merlot since those are the most commonly drank. ( i like the sauvignon cause it's sweet and sour and not too dry like chardonnay - good for people who only like white zin.)


Then with the desert fondue, obviously get the fondue chocolate then on the side have strawberries, marshmallows, big pretzel sticks, yellow cake cut into squares... again, anything that would be good chocolate covered (which is EVERYTHING in my book)

With that i would serve a port wine. Its a sweet red desert wine that most people have never tried. Sandeman's port is a great and less expensive port. If you want to go all out, go to ikea or another bargain store and get the rigth glasses for each kind of wine.
Red wine - Big wide mouth wine glasses
White - narrower regular wine glasses
Port - goes in what looks like a mini wine glass.

As far as games, i think good music, a movie as a background or conversation is great. Whenever i have my girlfriends over we watch the movie "The Sweetest Thing" it's freakin hilarious and every girl can relate to it. And it usually never gets watched all the way through cause it sparks conversation. Games are too collegey. I would stay away from those. Unless you wanna get really wild you can go to spencer's gifts and get some crazy girls night in types of games. But i think with the wine and all a classy night seems right.

I think i got everything down. You can always add more food if you think you need it like rolled deli meats, crackers, and un-melted cheeses. But you will find that the amount of things you can dip in the fondue will keep everyone nice and full. Then youalways have desert!!

Have fun.

Answer 6

i actually think a bring your own wine party would be fun. I live in Napa Valley and one party I went to that my friend hosted asked us to bring any wine under $15 not from the USA. we got all sorts of stuff from south africa, australia, germany etc. Another time we did california vs. france tasting, kind of like the big one that happened in the 1970s. The hostess usually offered food and/or treats and we all brought wine to try. It was a total blast. And it was a great way to try different wines. We all work in the wine industry so it was fun tasting wine that we had never heard of.

Answer 7

I like BlueSea's idea for the invitations. Dont ask them to bring anything.....but if you talk to them casually and they offer then its okay. As far as snacks go, I would do cheese and crackers of course (for 5 people, I would get 2 cheese logs) and 3 boxes of Carr crackers. You could also offer brushetta or a spinach artichoke dip.

I love this simple recipe for Brushetta:

1 baugette
1 container goat cheese
1 bottle roasted red peppers, sliced thin
1 bottle Classico sundried tomato pesto

Slice baugettes about 1/2 inch thick. Spread a little goat cheese, sundried tomato spread, and top with a few slices roasted red peppers. Toast until cheese melts.

Answer 8

The downside to people bringing wine is the quality of wine you may be receiving. I've seen some nasty stuff arriving and ended up pouring them down the drain. Skip the crackers and try to match different cheese with different wine. For example, dry Champagne bring the sweetness out of Bleu Cheese. Manchego goes well with Pinot Noir. Aged Cheddar with old vintage Cabernet. Fun game can be blind tasting Red wine from the same vintage and region and see who can identify them. For example, try to identify Merlot, Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Red Zinfindel from Napa.

Light hors d'oeuvres such as quich, meat balls, etc. would go well with wine.

Answer 9

A very easy drink is Jungle Juice. Pour out maybe like 2 cups of mt dew or sprite/ 7 up drinks from a 2 liter and add vodka and kool aid mix to taste. Of course more alcohol the stronger it will be. Its good with pong offf you don't want to buy beer an it cheap. Get solo cups too. At least double the number of people. I am weird ande put out a sharpie so people can write their names on cups.

Answer 10

Thus sounds like my kind of party, and everyone has had wonderful suggestions! The only other thing I would suggest is maybe a "progressive" party. Start with your lighter whites with food to compliment, then move to your heaver reds, with food to compliment. That way, people can enjoy a variety of foods and wines without runing it. (Like starting out with a Shiraz and finishing with a Pinot Grigio....ewwwwww!!!!) Have fun!