When one of my friends told me about having a wine party I thought it was too easy and fun to pass up. My birthday was this past Saturday – don’t you love when your birthday lands on a Friday or Saturday? AND my parents were in town AND David was off – say what? Those variables are never ever going to align again.. ever. So I did what any reasonable girl in her late twenties would do: I threw myself a wine party at our house.
I used paperless post to skip the hassle and formality of paper invitations (although I LOVE a good paper invitation. Let’s not get crazy) I was just going for easy and low-key. I told everyone to bring a bottle under $25 for a wine contest.
when people walked through the door I wrote their name on their bottle and then put the bottle in a brown paper bag. I explained the concept to the wine store down the street who helped the cause and donated a lot of paper wine bags like this one. I had already made tags with numbers on them using stationary I never used anymore. Remember I was going for easy and low key. You could make it prettier by having cute tags or tie a different color ribbon on each bag and have people vote for their favorite color rather than write the number or their favorite wine.
I used the other side of the stationary to make voting cards so people could vote for their favorite wine. I just hand wrote the cards really quick. This was not a wine tasting – which would indicate 1/2 ounce pours and people talking about tannins and tobacco finishes. No no, this was a wine contest: drink as much as you want and then vote for your favorite when you think you’ve found it.
I had two sets of these world market stemless wineglasses as prizes for the winner of the best red and the winner of the best white. The four glasses served as the centerpieces (upside down with white tool wrapped around them) for the food table.
if you ever do this party make sure to put a big W or R on the brown bag – pouring red when you are expecting white is as bad as thinking it’s water and getting sprite or worse: thinking it’s coke and getting tobacco spit. Oh yes, that has happened to me. TWICE.
