Achieving the impossible
The challenge: wine for 50 people for $150
By Tim Protzman letters@hippopress.com
Did anyone ever tell you you couldn’t do something and that only made you more determined to succeed?
Usually for me it’s something like sneaking into a second movie free on the way out of the one you paid for. But what makes the story best is when the something you’re told you can’t do is remarkable. Fly the Atlantic? Climb Mount Everest? Land on the Moon? Win eight Gold Medals? Red Sox win the World Series? They all were supposed to be impossible.
Last week in my capacity as a wine consultant I bought the wine for an event. Fifty people were coming. There were some hors d’oeuvres. It was in the afternoon and my budget was $150. And that included bottled water and iced tea. And I didn’t think it could be done.
The first thing you need to know when planning an event with wine is how many glasses of wine come in a bottle. With the 750-milliliter bottles you get about five. That’s not a hefty grand bowl type of goblet; it’s your standard restaurant wine glass like the kind you’d get at a diner. It holds about seven ounces if it’s filled to the top, so have the bartender stop a little less than an inch from the top.
So if you do the math you’ll see that 50 people will get one glass of wine each from 10 bottles. Now factor in the 15 percent who won’t drink for whatever reason and you can reduce your count to nine bottles. And don’t think this is just for picnics and buffets. Imagine you paid $175 for a ticket to a wine event and they’re six bottles short on the 1967 Chateau Doisy Daene. There will almost be a riot. Those who got to taste the second growth sauterne found it remarkable. Apricot, sugared almonds and caramel rolled flawlessly around their palates. Those who didn’t get a taste got a free bottle of Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve Cabernet Franc ($29.99), which cut into the profit margin and got one event planner fired. So make sure everyone gets at least one glass. The event I was consulting on was free, so people couldn’t complain about being gypped, but if they were paying I’d have bought more wine.
The second consideration was the time of day. This was late afternoon. People tend to drink a little more when it’s dark outside and if this were an evening event I’d have added five more bottles. Some very serious wine tastings happen at 10 in the morning, when your taste sensation’s at its peak. They also drink a lot less at that time.
The third consideration is the audience. Is it a bowling league or a garden club? A group of men will drink less wine because it’s generally not their drink of choice. A higher percentage of women will order wine in a bar or restaurant than men, who still, as a group, are beer drinkers.
My event was 60 percent female. So we decided on a case, or 12 bottles.
The fourth consideration isn’t about quantity, it’s about wine sophistication. Let’s stop here. This has nothing to do with Juicy Couture clothing versus flannel and khaki. Some of the smartest people I’ve met knew little about wine. If the group is a bunch of grape heads who easily get 11 points on the Wine Test in the Marketing part of New Hampshire Liquor Commission’s Web site, then you might want to serve some special. And special doesn’t always mean pricey; you can impress grape heads with an obscure varietal or something from an out-of-the-way region. Think Finger Lakes (upstate New York) or Uruguay. This might make you a hero. Imagine if you served them a New Zealand wine 25 years ago before it was well known and recognizable.
The fifth consideration is patriotic. Red, White or blue? Blue is the Wine Rookies’ little code for “we’re serving bottles of red and white together at the same time.” White is more approachable for the casual wine drinker and the public at large. We chose two bottles of red to go along with the 10 whites.
Here’s what we came up with to serve to our afternoon, slightly-more-women, relatively-unknowledgeable-about-wine event crowd.
• Four bottles of Post House Blueish White Wine, $7.99 a piece. This blend of Chenin Blanc with 25 percent Sauvignon Blanc was very nice and finished better than some $30 bottles. Not very dry, with melon hints and a very pleasant finish. From South Africa’s Stellenbosch region.
• Four bottles of Les Rials, $8.49 apiece from the Gaillac region, about 70 miles southeast of Bordeaux. Dry, with lemon fruit notes.
• One bottle of Alois Lageder Portico dei Leoni Bianco, $12.99. A Pinot Grigio/Pinot Bianco blend with a nice bouquet and backbone and some herbaceous and lemon fruit.
• One bottle of Campogrande Orvieto Classico, $9.99. A hearty white with a strong rustic heritage. Produced by Antinori, the Italian wine giant. A nice-with-food wine.
• One bottle Sierra Cantabria Rioja Tinto, $11.99. A nicely dry and mouth-filling red from Spain’s Rioja region.
• One bottle (1.5 ml) Stone Cellars California Cabernet Sauvignon, $9.99. Stone Cellar is one of Beringer’s labels and it’s plummy and jammy with fruit and a little alcohol in the finish.
And we did it for $111, which I consider a great price for 50 people’s bar tab. And the weather was so cooperative — a sunny day, followed by a sudden squall which sent half the guests away, soaked the rest and allowed me to taste a tiny remaining bit of each wine.
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