Sunday 31 May 2015

Wine Club - better than book club!

So I thought a good way of trying new wines would be to do it with friends. So I gathered a bunch of like minded individuals to commit to regularly trying new wines.

It works like this:

One person hosts the wine party approximately every month/6 weeks. Each guest puts in £20, so if there are 5 of you, the budget is £100 and if there are 10 of you, the budget is £200 etc.

You then buy wine from a specific country and a specific colour if you like (e.g. Italian Reds). The wines should range in price from cheap wines (approx £6) up to - well as much as you like! It's great if you can get expensive wines on offer, e.g. I got a £50 bottle of wine for £25 on a special offer!

The host also provides nibbles from that country - preferably home made, but bought is fine!
I found the split of budget for 2/3rds on wine and 1/3rd on food works well.

Go for about 1 bottle of wine per person, and a number of savoury snacks, e.g. for Italy I made chicken and pesto bruschetta, mozzarella basil and tomato salad, pea and mozzarella arancini, grissini and Italian meats. I also made turkey meat lasagne, but that was only because  there were just 5 people and it was easy enough to do. I would stay with snacks wherever possible as they are easy for people to eat. 

You then try the wines, tell people what region they are from, show them on a map, tell them the grape, and let them know what notes are in the wine. 

Then you get to the fun bit of guessing the cost of each bottle.

It's a really fun evening, so try it! It's more fun than a book club and no preparation is needed (except for the host). 

Our next wine evening will be Spain in a few weeks time, so I will write it up on here, and share some photos.

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