Shared bottles are the best bottles.
All in Entertaining
Are you firing up the BBQ this weekend to celebrate the 4th of July? Wondering what to enjoy along with your grilled feast? Here are suggested Red, White, and Brew pairings for traditional Independence Day grub, and throughout the summer!
It’s recycling day, and I’m embarrassed.
My blue bin is being dumped and it sounds like closing time in the back alley of a dive bar. Our neighbors know we haven’t thrown any parties lately, so it’s just us.
All this extra wine consumption can put a serious dent in your budget if you aren’t careful. Fortunately, there are many affordable everyday wines that taste great and are easy to source.
Here are some of our go-to selections. All of these wines retail for under $20, and are distributed nationally to Total Wine, BevMo, Specs, and most national grocery stores.
Sally and I dined at a winery, in a beautiful room with 30 guests seated at a long table. An award-winning chef prepared a delicious six course meal. Each course was expertly paired with a different wine, and the winemaker talked about her wines as they were served. An opera singer entertained us throughout the evening.
It was hard to believe we were in Escondido.
It's always fun to experiment with wine pairings. There are equally endless pairing opportunities with beer, too!
So we decided to take things up a notch and host a pairing party. We gave it a "Better Together" theme to acknowledge both the pairings and the friends we were bringing together.
Here's our step-by-step guide so you can host your own wine and beer shindig.
We're big fans of themed wine parties. It's a fun and easy way to enjoy some good wine with friends without getting too fussy or pretentious.
This wine party featured Cabernet Sauvignon, and featured bottles we had picked up on our travels. Each had its own unique story.
Our friends blind-tasted the wines, and we paired them with a cheese course and then a steak dinner.
Myles, the main character in the movie Sideways, famously uttered his contempt for Merlot in a classic scene. That reputation was probably well-deserved at the time, as the market had been flooded with a lot of cheap, crappy wine.
Not anymore. Our friends, Alisa and Ken, recently hosted a blind tasting that proves Merlot is worth a try.
It's fun to focus on one varietal.
You really don't appreciate how different wine from the same grape can taste until you try several examples side-by-side. This can make for a fun party.
Here's one way you can do it that's relatively easy.
Too many people are concerned with what wine should taste like.
That’s really nonsense. The only way to do it is to trust your taste buds. Focus on color, smell, and taste. If you like it, it’s good.
Blind tasting is a great way to strip away the noise. Your preconceptions can’t influence your perceptions. It’s just you and the wine.
Wine can be a lot of fun when you abandon all pretenses and trust your taste buds.
One thing we enjoy is blind tasting wine with friends. We like to pick a particular varietal to explore and serve several bottles to our friends without telling them the year, region, or winery. The only way to judge the wine is by is color, smell, and taste.
We recently hosted a dinner party to share some bottles of Zinfandel we had acquired.
