How to Choose Wine for Your Dinner Party

How to Choose Wine for Your Dinner Party Susan: I'm here at River City Cellars to meet Dave and Julia. I really want to pair the right wine and get the right advice on what wine’s going to work with our great that we’re serving tonight. So we’ve got the mussels and the beef, I just want to get right and I know they’ve got good advice. So go and see what they have to say. Julia: Good morning! Susan: Hi I'm Susan! Dave: I'm David. Susan: I'm looking for a dinner wine for dinner party, eight people, we’re serving. I want to do the cheese tray first for like cocktails. I want a wine for that, a wine for the mussel course, the seafood course, a wine for the beef course and then a dessert wine. So that’s four wines. I'm sort of a little bit of a budget so something maybe $30.00 and below. Dave: That’s a great price for it. That’s definitely that number of wines we can definitely accommodate in that range. Maybe something a little bit different that people haven’t had before, throw them something cool. Susan: We’re all wine drinkers. Dave: Alright. Susan: We’re venturesome, we can go anywhere. Dave: Awesome that’s great. Susan: Take us where ever you want us to go. Dave: That’s excellent. Well -- Susan: Where do you want to start? Dave: Start at the beginning, a little cheese and you know why not best way to break the ice, have a little sparkling wine, a little -- sparkling, -- awesome tiny little producer, really nice little wine. Susan: First course for cheese. Dave: First course. Susan: Now how do I put then? And what type of glass? Dave: Well you know you can use your -- Susan: Can I use champagne glass? Dave: You can yeah, you can use a regular wine glass but not necessary, yeah you know. But you know, it’s your own discretion you know if you want to show a little more initiative with it. You know wine flutes will be certainly a -- it’s a champagne style wine, secondary fermentation, lot of yeasty flavor there so it’s full. It can pair well with a whole range of cheeses. Susan: Great! And -- you’re having with the cheeses too. Dave: Okay, not a prob. I say Julia is better cheese expert than I am. Julia: Well let’s go on to the next. Susan: Mussels, what do you think about that? Dave: I loved mussels. One wine we are featuring this week is muscadine, pairs great with mussels. Be it cooking with mussels or just drinking while eating the mussels. Produced in Loire Valley again like the sparkler, this being the most western point, near the coast. So the wine is designed for shellfish, it’s a rather skewer varietals -- excellent, nice acidity. Would you like to taste of it? Susan: Sure. Dave: I think Julia has -- Julia: One of the nice things about the wine of the week is we have some liquor tasting and it’s never too early. Susan: Yes. Now we’re going European with these ones? Is that -- does it happen to be that way? Dave: That’s the focus of our store in general. Susan: Oh in general? Dave: Yeah. We -- we’re heavy on old world wines, wines that have more balance with not just a fruit but the earth then the acidity and the alcohol. Julia: So this is -- Lopez de Heredia is the name of the family. -- is this particular bottling. Again, seventh generation wine makers, all temper and aged. And this a 2002 is their current release so they’ve held this back and got some beautiful bottle age on it. It’s ready to drink right now. Susan: So now, what do I serve this one? Now this is a glass I brought from home for my red. Is that going to be okay? Julia: Yes, that will be great with the red. You know with a bigger body, a fuller body red or bigger wine, you want a little more room in the bowl. You’re going, you’re not going to fill it all the way to the top. You’re filling it with more ounces, you’re not able to swirl it, come to aerate it. But it’s also big enough to allow all those aromas to come out naturally. Where a white wine glass which is smaller, a flute which is smaller still, a flute is designed to let the bubbles come up the side and you want as much of that side surface area in as little top surface are, that’s the whole point of the wine flute. With the white wine, you want to be able to concentrate the aromas a little more, the holes are smaller, the pours are smaller. Susan: I think I’ve got that. More flute for the first wine, simple wine but the flute where would people think as a regular wine glass. This for the red. Julia: Exactly. Susan: And when we go to talk about the dessert, maybe we’ll talk about -- Julia: Depending which dessert we pick, yeah again you add in the meals, smaller course, smaller glasses in general. Susan: I have the small -- it looks like the champagne flutes but they’re about that small, would that be perfect? Julia: Okay good.