6 Tips for Buying Wine for This Christmas Party
The holidays are here, and with them come Christmas parties! While the prospect of going to a festive gathering is exciting, it can be stressful if you’re responsible for bringing something impressive. If you’ve been tasked with selecting wine for this year’s get-together, then don’t fret—we have six tips that will help make your decision easier. With our guide in tow, you’ll step into the party with confidence and make sure your guests are feeling merry!
Consider Everyone’s Tastes
The first step on this list, which is a slight contradiction to the tip above, is to consider everyone’s tastes when buying wine for this year’s Christmas party. Buying a very large bottle of wine might be a great idea if everyone at the table has similar tastes, but that isn’t always going to be the case.
If you know that everyone at the table has slightly different tastes, you might want to consider getting different holiday-themed wines from Oddbins to satisfy everyone’s wine needs. Having said that, you should always get two or three bottles of the same wine. For example, if you get red wine from a specific type, get two of the same bottle, not another kind of red.
Bigger Might Be Better
The next tip on this list for anyone looking to buy wine for their Christmas party this year would be to consider the size of the bottles that they are going to be buying. While a few tips on this list do recommend buying a few different bottles to accommodate the variety of tastes at the table, you might want to think about buying something bigger.
Did you know that wine bottles come in a variety of sizes meant for different occasions? For example, the Le Quart bottle is the smallest, whereas the Salmanazar bottle is the biggest. If you know that everyone at the table has a similar taste, it might be a good idea to get a very large bottle of wine to prevent the endless need to reopen new bottles.
Consider the Food Being Served
One of the most important tips on this list when buying wine for this year’s Christmas party would be to consider the food that is being served. While it is a good idea to consider everyone’s taste when buying a bottle of wine, you also need to consider the food that is being served.
This is simply because some foods taste better with some wines than others. For example, when it comes to fatty foods, it is better to get a better type of wine. In terms of light-intensity meats like chicken or fish, white wine is the best. And you should always serve red wine with boldly flavored meats.
Work With a Budget
Another incredibly important tip when buying wine for this year’s Christmas party would be to work within a budget. The first thing that you are going to need to find out is how many people are going to be attending since this will determine how much wine you are going to need to buy.
One of the more important reasons why working with the budget is so important is so that you can be able to buy wine for everyone’s tastes, and so that you know roughly how much to spend per bottle.
Simple Rules for Multiple Bottles
Now that you have a few tips under your belt and feel a bit more confident about buying wine for this year’s Christmas party, you should be aware of a few simple rules when buying multiple bottles.
For example, if you are going to be buying one red and one white wine, the red wine should be more full-bodied and not light, acidic, tannic, or sweet. The white wine should be your usual dry white wine, since getting something too obscure or unfamiliar might not be enjoyable for the average wine drinker.
How Much To Buy
Finally, the last tip on this list relates to how much wine you should be buying for the party. The good news is that there is quite a simple rule that can be followed, which is the number of people attending divided by 4, times the number of hours the party will last.
This is because the usual bottle of wine, which is around 750 milliliters, usually fills four glasses of wine. Statistics also show that people usually drink one glass per hour. So, for a 4-hour-long Christmas party in which 6 guests will be attending, you would do the calculation: 6 guests divided by 4 = 1.5, and that multiplied by 4 is 6. So that is the number of bottles you should be getting.