How To Throw A Wine and Cheese Party
A wine and cheese party can be a great way to get together with friends or for a extra bridal or wedding shower, birthday party or other celebration. It be easy to put together with a minimum of work even if you don't know much about wine or cheese! You can throw together a simple but elegant party without a lot of fuss and have an spirited theme to boot.
How To Throw A Wine and Cheese Party
You can setup your room in a consolidate separate ways which undoubtedly depends on how much room you have and the shape of your room or rooms. One way is to use a long buffet table against one wall with separate sections. another is to have any "stations" nearby the room by using small tables each with determined wines and their complimentary cheeses. You'll want to add some other foods too as man cannot live on wine and cheese alone!
Decorations
A wine and cheese party should be somewhat elegant but not too gaudy. You could have simple white tablecloths with white candles. Maybe decorating the table with grapes and grape leaves or something seasonal such as fall leaves if the party is in the fall or holly, pine boughs and ornaments if it's at the holidays. A summer party might be cute with light floral bouquets. Fruit - especially grapes go great with wine and cheese so you could have a 3 tiered centerpiece or large ancient bowl filled with grapes and other fruit on the tables too. If you choose one large table a big centerpiece would be a nice focal point, you could even use and old architectural urn filled with ice and wine bottles or a large tiered platter with various tidbits on it.
You'll want to have labels for each cheese that states the name and normal flavor - you can enlarge on that by adding the origin and maybe some history if you feel ambitious. Each section of cheese could have it's own cutting board and cutter - A cute idea would be to use the cheese boards that are made out of flattened wine bottles to cut the cheese on.
Glasses and Plates
You'll want to make sure to use the right type of wine glass with each wine. Red wine should be poured into a round ball shaped glass and white wine is more fluted but not as narrow as a champagne flute. Keep a bunch of each type of glass out so your guests can be sure to have the right glass at all times. For dishes you could get wine themed plates or go with an eclectic mix of small ancient plates. Make sure you have fullness of small plates nearby to encourage quests to try small samples of cheese with each wine.
What To Serve
A wine and cheese party needs more than just wine and cheese! You'll also want to contribute lots of spirited breads and crackers. Maybe some caviar? And don't forget dessert - a cheesecake would be in keeping with the theme but any dessert will do! And finally, some coffee might be in order after all that wine and please make sure that no one drives after having too much wine.
Of course, you'll want to make sure you serve the right wine with the right cheese and in fact complimentary wine and cheese pairings can yield spirited and unusual tastes. Half the fun of a wine and cheese party is experimenting for yourself to see what new combinations you can come up with, but heres some tips to start you off:
Wine And Cheese Party Pairing Tips
- Wines commonly go well with cheese that is from the same country or region
- An acidic cheese commonly goes well with acidic wines
- Roquefort goes well with Port
- Camembert, Cheddar and Brie go well with Cabernet and Champagne
- Cream Cheese and White Zinfandel make a nice pair
- Mix muenster with Beaujolais
- Colby and Gouda go good with Reisling
- Pair provolone with Chardonnay
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