Wine Etiquette.

I meant to share this wine etiquette tutorial created for A Cup Of Joe last week to ensure none of us committed any party fouls on New Years Eve. Unfortunately, I never got around to it in time. Even though the holidays are now over it's worth sharing as - after all - it never hurts to brush up on your social etiquette. The illustrations (by Gemma Correll) are pretty damn adorable, too.

The tutorial can be found here. Cheers!



(Illustrations by Gemma Correll for A Cup Of Joe).

Wine Tasting Labels

I flipped when I saw this idea - brilliance. I vote we try this at our next wine tasting! Who says the fun has to end with the Holidays?

More wine-tasting fun can be found here.




Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings.

M & J's Wedding-Party-Party

My new favourite photo of M & J (taken during the Nearly Wed Game)

Whew! What a party. We danced, we sang, we wined, we dined, all in celebration of Matt & Jen! It's safe to say that M & J's Wedding Party Party was a smashing success; as was the blind wine tasting. SO... as promised, here are the details of how this was executed (in case you would like to host a blind wine tasting of your own)!

Pre-Party Planning:

Guests were sent electronic invites (via cocodot) and asked to bring a bottle of red or a bottle of white, per couple. The Catch: the bottle of wine must be $12 or less.

Day-Of Set Up:

Bottles were bagged, tied with raffia, and numbered as they arrived and then arranged at the tasting stations.

All bottles (red + white) were originally going to be in the craft paper bags; however, during set up, J's mum raised a very valid concern regarding the fact that the paper posed an issue for chilling the whites. For this reason, we opted for black plastic bags for the whites so they could be chilled on ice up right up until the tastings. It proved to be a very important executive decision. Thanks Linda!


The Tastings:

Guests were given a disposable (+ recyclable) wine glass to pass through the whites and reds and their leisure. We did not assign the wines in a specific order; guests were therefore free to try all red, all white, or a combination of both. After each tasting, the guest placed his/her initials on the line that best described his/her feelings for that particular wine (our five point scale ranged from "I would only buy this for someone I didn't like" to "I would bathe in this, daily"). Guests had the ability to record their favourites (and least favourites) on a separate piece of paper they could leave with.


The Big Reveal:

Once everyone had finished tasting, the bottles were revealed (we kept the bottles with their "numbers" in case guests wanted to see how they scored a particular wine or make their final notes). We were quite pleasantly surprised with the overall consensus of the tasting results; these will be very helpful for M & J when they select the wines for their reception.


I have to send mad props to Alanna and Sam and Jessica who put this fiesta together. Big Love, ladies.

. . .

In case you were wondering... our party's top pick was "Soft White" by Bear Flag Wines. Not only does it have a rad label, it's also "bathe-worthy."