Saturday, December 15, 2007

Daily December: Days Fourteen and Fifteen

Friday was spent mostly cleaning and getting ready for our Holiday Wine Tasting party that we held on Saturday.



Once we decided to go to Michigan over New Year's and realized we weren't going to be here for parties with neighbors and friends, we decided to host one so we could get together with everyone at least once during the holidays.

My friend Nancy had hosted a party like this a few years ago and everyone had a great time so we decided to do it again. Ten couples attended and each couple had to bring one bottle of wine under $12 and one bottle over $15 in their assigned category (i.e. Merlot, Zinfandel, etc.). I made score cards for each person and throughout the evening we tasted wines and scored them 1-10.



At the end of the night Jim tallied the scores to determine the best bottle under $12, best bottle overall, and worst bottle. We even had prizes for the winners.



In case you're looking for a bottle of wine to serve with your holiday meals the winners are pictured above. The best bottle under $12 was the Castle Rock Pinot Noir. At our local store it was $11.82 but I just found it at World Market for $12.99 (still not a bad price). The best bottle overall was the Cline Ancient Vines Zinfandel. It was around $16 at our local store but was on sale at World Market for $14.99. The bottle voted the worst was the Buena Vista Chardonnay and it was just so bad that I actually think maybe the wine had turned somehow. I actually think I might try this one again just to see if it's really that bad.

Each couple also brought an appetizer so we had tons of great food! We were all trading recipes the next week.

My friend Heather took all the fantastic pictures. I'm always so grateful that she totes her camera everywhere!



Can't wait to do this again!

2 comments:

Heather said...

I will call myself out and let everyone know that I was the one that brought the worst wine! ha!

Brandy said...

i saw the pics of heather's flickr, looked like a blast! i also heard that heather can't keep her hands to herself...