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November 19, 2014

How Much Wine to Serve for the Holidays

Fall Tablescape for Thanksgiving

Hosting a holiday gathering at your place? Be sure you have enough wine for your guests. Unsure how much wine you need for an event? Don’t worry!

When planning all you need to know is how you plan on serving your wine, how many guests will be drinking, and how long your guests will be there. Think about:

How long will your guests be over? Assume each guest drinks about two glasses of wine every two hours.

How many guests will be drinking? Each standard 750-ml wine bottle is roughly four servings of wine (assuming a six ounce pour).  A magnum bottle (1.5 liters) has eight to twelve glasses of wine (assuming four to six ounce pours).

Thanksgiving table settings with bottles of wine

For a twelve-person dinner for Thanksgiving, with guests arriving around 5pm and dinner at 6pm, assuming all guests are over 21 and will be enjoying wine, plan on consuming six bottles. Over the course of five hours, twelve guests will drink two glasses of wine very two hours, a total of 30 glasses or eight bottles.

Are you pairing wines with individual courses? If you’re pairing wines with individual courses, you’ll need more bottles to ensure that everyone gets enough. The exact number of bottles you need depends on whether guests are drinking full glasses (four to six ounces) or tasting pours (two ounces).

If you’re serving tasting pours at your twelve-person dinner, you’ll want two bottles of each wine for every course you’re serving. To ensure you don’t run out wine over the course of five hours at a three-course meal, plan on eight bottles of wine. For full glasses, you’ll want three bottles of each wine for every course you’re serving; in this example eleven bottles of wine.

Two bottles of wine with a glass

November 3, 2014

Pairing Sauvignon Blanc: The Perfect Accompaniment to Cheese, Salami, and Apples

Wine bottle with cheese board

The secret to a perfect pairing is balance, not just of flavors, but of texture and acid as well. For a perfect cheese and salami platter to serve with your Cultivar Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, you’re looking for some creaminess and just a hint of sweetness or spice. You want to select foods that will complement or amplify the notes in your wine and not overpower it.

Because Sauvignon Blanc has grassy notes, it’s a great wine to pair with goat’s and sheep’s milk cheeses. Cow’s milk cheeses are trickier to pair with Sauvignon Blanc as they are fairly acidic. You want to select a mix of unaged cheeses with light flavor, such as Idiazabal Raw Sheep Milk Cheese, Petite Basque Sheep’s Milk Cheese, and Goat Milk Cheddar Cheese.

Sauvignon Blanc wine with a cheese platter

For that hint of sweetness, choose in season apples that are a little more tart and have a bit of crunch, like Fuji or Gold Rush. Chili-dusted candied pecans are also delicious, delivering both sweetness and spice.

Similar to cow’s milk cheeses, salami can be challenging to pair with Sauvignon Blanc. Look for meats that are lower in salt and milder in flavor, such as Olli Organic Norcino Salami or have a little kick, such as Fra Mani Salametto Piccante.

Bon Appetit!