Holiday Entertaining: Wine Wisdom from Wine Expert Karen MacNeil
There’s still time to up the game and make your holiday party sensational this season. I’ve given scores of wine-focused holiday parties for companies and groups of friends. Here are my top five tips:
- Don’t skimp on wine. Really good wine makes a statement about how much you value your colleagues, staff, and friends. By spending $5 to $10 more per bottle, the wines will deliver 10 times the impact.
- Serve several different fun, intriguing wines. Not just a generic white and a red. You want the “wine vibe” to be exciting—and it doesn’t cost a lot to make it that way.
- If you are serving different wines, don’t serve the best wine last. The best wine should always come first. It makes a statement, and early in the evening is when most guests are paying real attention.
- If you’re giving a dinner party, don’t serve one wine per course. That can come off a little too officious. It’s much more fun if everyone has two wines per course (serve smaller amounts of each). Two wines will encourage experimentation and conversation.
- Consider having an entertaining wine speaker—someone who can galvanize the room. The speaker should not “give a wine class” (the holidays are not usually the right time for that). Instead, a great wine speaker will know how to make the wine evening memorable by choosing exceptional wines for your event and talking about them in an engaging way. My own rule is to tell fun stories about wine, but for no more than 45 minutes. After that, everyone just wants to enjoy!
–Karen MacNeil is the author of the bestselling book The Wine Bible. She conducts exclusive wine events around the world.
