To Bring or Not to Bring, That Is the Question.

By Leticia Borges.

Wine is always welcome.  If you bring a great bottle of wine to a party, the host will hide it until all the guests are gone.  If you bring a half decent bottle, the drunks will gladly indulge. If you miss the mark entirely and bring a wine that sucks lime, the cook will be happy to pour it into the pasta sauce.  The question then becomes, which wine should you bring? If you really want to overthink this, here are a few rules of thumb that can help solve the mystery.

Let the food do the talking

I’m sure you’ve heard that wine and food go hand in hand. But what does that mean? How are you supposed to know what food will be served at a party to figure out what to bring? And, even if you knew, how would that help you face the 12-foot grocery store wine wall?

Home gatherings, typically, fall into one of two categories:

• The very last-minute cocktail party with little planning involved, or
• A sit-down dinner with more preparation required

Of course, there are options in between, but solving for the extremes allows you to make a few reasonable assumptions that could also apply to the range of options.

The last minute shindig

A colleague just invited you to her house. “Nothing fancy, just a few friends coming over and lots of, what she referred to as “ghetto hors d’oeuvres”.  If this were your party, you would probably run to the nearest store and buy a cheese platter, right?  Chances are your host will do the same.  The list of appetizers commonly found on the lazy entertaining tray also includes hummus, guacamole, Doritos and, if you’re lucky, some form of chicken nuggets.

The challenge now becomes finding a wine that goes well with all of those very different flavors. What do you do?

Tip number 1: Unless you know the host has a strict rule against it, bring red wine. It’s a matter of convenience. White wine requires refrigeration. If you show up with a warm bottle of white wine, people will have to wait for the bottle to chill. It’s a party! Who has time for that? Even in you brought a cold bottle, what is elegant about opening someone else’s fridge every time you need a refill?  There’s nothing I hate more than people opening my fridge.  Stick with red. Your host will like you more for it.

The second inconvenience is flavor. Typically, white wines will have flavors of citrus, green apple, pear, melon, roses, to name a few.  Now think about the party appetizers. What about Doritos and lemon sounds appetizing? How about pear and guacamole? Call me crazy, but hummus and roses sound like something out of an episode of “Black Mirror”. Let’s not get sidetracked by the few instances where the combination might actually work.  The goal is solving for the larger food options and a white wine is simply not a good partner to the food choices at hand.

Tip number 2: Bring a dry red wine. Dry means not sweet.  If you’re trying to make your wine work with hummus and guacamole, a sweet wine might not be a good option.

Tip number 3: Bring a light or medium bodied wine. Understanding body is easier if you think of milk. The difference between cream and skim milk is pretty obvious, right?  Think of full bodied wines as cream and light bodied wine as skim milk.  A wine with a full body is heavier, will likely be opaque when put up against the light and will tend to have deeper flavors. Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are good examples of a heavier wine.  The risk of a full-bodied wine is that it can overpower the foods on our lazy list.  A lighter wine is more delicate with less potency and will likely not fight with the food. A Pinot Noir or a Merlot blend are good options because they’re generally both dry and light to medium bodied.

What’s for dinner?

A more formal gathering requires some preparation, so chances are that your host already knows what he’ll be serving for dinner. If your goal is to bring a bottle of wine that complements the meal, just ask. Anyone will happily share their menu plans if they perceive you’re helping them improve the overall guest experience.   Once you know what’s on the menu, look for wines that match the region of the food being served.  For example, if the host is serving beef bourguignon (French for Burgundy beef) bring red wines from the Burgundy Region.  Is the main dish Paella? Go with a medium-bodied red wine from Spain. A blend of Tempranillo might be a great option.  When it comes to meaty red sauce pasta, a mid-bodied Italian wine –Primitivo for example– can hold its own against the richness of the dish.  Oversimplifying? Maybe.  But give it a try. The worst that could happen is that your wine ends up in the pasta sauce.

Throw it all out the window

Still not comfortable?  Forget everything you just read and try this experiment. Bring two bottles of wine. They don’t have to be the most expensive or the best ones in the store. Just make sure they are very different from one another, for example a light bodied Beaujolais and a heavier Cabernet Sauvignon.  Introduce them as a tasting experience and have everyone try them both with the food to see which one they like best. This is a fun way to pair wine with food and understand why certain things work well together while others don’t.  More importantly, it’s a clever way of concealing your complete wine incompetence in an entertaining way. Plus, who doesn’t like the guy who brings two bottles of wine to the party? By the way, don’t show up with 5 guests and one bottle of wine. The guideline is a minimum of one bottle per couple.

Lastly, keep in mind that wine shouldn’t cause you stress. It should be about bringing people together. So, next time you’re invited to a party, bring wine.  Any wine. Have fun with the possibilities.  Above all, don’t be disappointed if you discover your wine doesn’t pair well with Cheetos.  In fact, the questions should not be, does this wine pair with Cheetos? It should be, why am I still friends with someone who serves Cheetos at a party?