Wine About It

So the economy is tight, and our budgets and tighter. We can get together with our girlfriends and whine about it…or we can get together with our girlfriends and wine about it. Yep, when the going gets tough, the tough…have a wine tasting!

Just because our budgets our stretched doesn’t have to mean that our days of great get-togethers with friends have to come to a screeching halt. Instead, it’s simply time to get creative and find new ways to keep things fresh and plan simple parties that don’t have to bust the bank.

There was a day when wine was reserved for special occasions only or seemed to be more of a “highbrow” libation. These days, however, it seems everyone is enjoying a glass here and there, so why not make it the centerpiece of your next party?

This doesn’t have to be a stuffy get together, and it certainly doesn’t have to be expensive. Quite the opposite actually. Plan this party to be low-key and laidback, and your guests will find themselves relaxing and having a great time.

With a little planning, you can create one-of-a-kind invitations that set the perfect tone for your party. Save empty wine bottles—or ask others to do so for you—and steam the labels off the bottles. Once the labels have dried, adhere them to plain scrapbooking paper, cutting the paper to fit the label. On the scrapbook paper side, list the invite details for your party (the date, time, location and R.S.V.P. information), and also instruct each guest to bring their favorite bottle of wine in a plain bag. No two invites will be exactly the same, and this kind of invite gives your guests the hint that this will be a fun, informal get together.

Set the stage for your party by lighting some candles in the area you are entertaining in. Don’t worry about making sure everything matches. Eclectic is in, so take advantage of it! Candles of varying heights and shades look fantastic when grouped together.

Keep the menu light for the party—crackers, cheese, olives. You don’t want anything heavy or anything that will interfere with the wine tasting, but you do want to give your guests a little something to munch on.

Once guests arrive, discretely spirit away the wine they have been instructed to bring, and quickly jot down the name of the wine each guest brought as well as who brought it. Cover the labels so that guests can’t see them—a piece of dark or heavy paper works well for this. Label each bottle with a number (one through however many bottles you have). Have a table set with small, inexpensive plastic cups. Since this is a “tasting,” there is no need to break out your expensive wine glasses.

This is where the fun begins. Open the various bottles and choose wine to begin. Pour each guest a small sample in a cup. Provide guests with paper and pens. Ask that each guest jot down three things about each wine they taste: what kind of wine they think they are drinking (merlot, cabernet, pinot noir, chardonnay, etc.), the brand name or wine maker if they can guess it, and the name of the guest they think brought the wine.

Once you have made your way through all of the wines, have the guests tally the number of points they have to see who was the evening’s best “winer.” Each correct answer gets one point. It’s all in fun, but if you wish, have a small token “prize” to give to the guest who had the most right—a set of wine charms, a funny wine refrigerator magnet or a decorated wine glass. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it can be fun to provide a token prize as well.

If you want, go online and find information on various types of wines and their suggested food pairings to give your guests a bit more information about wine. There are lots of tips on wine tasting out there, and although this is an informal tasting, it can be entertaining to learn more about the topic. Printing out some of these tips for guests to check out is a nice touch.

At the end of your evening, you may find that not only have you all had a great time, you may have learned a little more about wine and a little more about each other’s tastes as well.