Picking Wine for a Party

Filed in archive Food and Wine on December 18, 2006

Since it's holiday time, that means for many of us that it is also party time. Maybe you are even throwing one or two dinner parties yourself this season.

When I have people over for dinner, I usually try to consider what their wine tastes are as well as balance this with what we plan to eat. It can be tough because I have such a wide variety of tastes, and I've learned that most people usually have a very limited palate.

If you are also trying to figure out how to please your guests and compliment your food at the same time, then this advice from Beppi Crosariol might be helpful:

Principiano Barolo Boscareto 1999 ($64.95, No. 015149) is warm and penetrating with hints of cherry, tar and spices.How do you pick a wine when company's coming? If you're like most holiday hosts, I suspect you do either, or both, of two things. You pick a wine you personally want to drink, and/or you consider the menu and choose something that's likely to pair well with the food.

Both perfectly sensible courses of action, absolutely.

Sensible, but unfortunately not guaranteed to please your guests. Why? For one thing, obviously your tastes may be very different from those of your guests, a fact of which I'm reminded each time I dare to serve a white with a main course in these red-wine-fixated times (even when the main course is a delicate fish).

Also, in my experience, most people frankly don't give a sow's rump whether a wine tastes good with the food on their plates (see previous point). Seriously, I can name restaurant critics with supposedly sensitive and sophisticated palates who can't tell when a wine clashes badly with the food they're eating.

Fact is, you, I and a few other grape nuts in this country may actually care about food-and-beverage harmony, but most people on your (non-connoisseur) guest list will be happiest with a full-bodied red that charms them on the first sip.

This is not to say we all should run out and stock up on Yellowtail Shiraz, the runaway bestseller from Australia that's the populist wine equivalent of Kraft Dinner. It's possible to serve a serious, complex and versatile red that will wow a crowd and still appeal to your inner wine geek.