Organizing a wine tasting party

How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party

Nidhi Nangia
By Nidhi Nangia. Updated: January 16, 2017
How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party

If you are hosting a wine and food pairing party, you need to find perfect matches of wines and foods for different types of meals or dishes. You need to find the right combination of food flavors that can highlight, harmonize and enhance the features of the available wines, thus making the entire culinary experience a memorable one for your guests. Here at OneHowTo.com, we are going to tell you how to host a wine and food pairing party, thus giving you a grip on which wines to serve with which foods, and vice versa.

You may also be interested in: The Best Appetizers to Serve with Red Wine

Contents

  1. What matches and what not
  2. Pairing many wines with a featured course
  3. Pairing a variety of dishes with a featured wine
  4. Guest entertainment

What matches and what not

While hosting a wine and food pairing party, pay attention to the reasons for which one dish works fine with a particular wine and not with the other. For a number of wine and food pairings, there is simply no harmony in the magnitude. For instance, light flavored foods taste best with light flavored wines. So, light and crispy Muscadet will match perfectly well with a sole fillet, and not with a red wine. Similarly, full-flavored foods will be best paired with intensely flavored wines. Other than this, certain wines just don’t go well with some food flavors, so you have to pay attention to this aspect as well.

Pairing many wines with a featured course

One way to host a wine and food pairing party is to pair one big featured course with a variety of different wines. You can collect wines from different parts of the world, or choose a theme for them, such as all wines based on Cabernet Sauvignon. With this kind of arrangement, you and your guests will be able to see which wines pair perfectly with the type of food you have served. Surprisingly, you will find some pairings that work beautifully with each other.

How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party - Pairing many wines with a featured course

Pairing a variety of dishes with a featured wine

Another option to host a wine and food pairing party is to feature a particular wine and serve it with several dishes, including a variety of soups, cheese, meat dishes, fish dishes etc. Let your guests enjoy that particular wine with all of the served dishes, and listen to their opinions. The wine that you choose can be your favorite wine, or a wine that has a great reputation out there. In this way, you will be able to find out which foods suit best with the style of wine you served at the party.

For appetizer ideas, take a look at our article on what appetizers go well with red wine.

How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party - Pairing a variety of dishes with a featured wine

Guest entertainment

If you want to keep your guests entertained during the wine and food pairing party, there are several activities that can make the experience even more enjoyable. For example, you could hide the wine labels and make the guests guess what wine they are tasting. You can also prepare a spreadsheet for each guest so they can vote what type of wine pairs best with each type of food.

How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party - Guest entertainment

If you want to read similar articles to How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party, we recommend you visit our Food & drink category.

Tips
  • There are several courses on wine and food pairing both online and in many cities. Learn the rules of pairing or hire a person for the occasion who can show you how it's done.

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How To Host A Wine And Food Pairing Party