Pot-Luck Wine Dinner

The holidays are upon us. For so many of us, our calendars get filled with parties, covered dish lunches at work, gift exchanges and the like. It's a great time to get together with people you see all the time and to reconnect with others where usually busy schedules can get in the way.

My other half and I use the holidays as an excuse for an annual gathering of three of my grad school colleagues and their spouses. We all live in the area and see each other separately or at each other's larger group parties, but this is the one time during the year that just the eight of us usually get together. So, we all work to make it really special.

This year, we're going back to a formula we used a couple of years ago. A pot-luck wine dinner. A multi-course meal where everyone shares the cooking duties and brings their favorite wines. It's especially successful if you have a group of friends into wine and food like ours are. You get to exchange recipes and pairing ideas and to taste some vinos that you might not be familiar with. It's a great way to have fun and learn a little something at the same time.

Here's how we do it. Each couple signs up for a course and a wine to go with it. The kitchen is available for folks to cook and we all have a good time helping and observing our fellow chefs at work. As hosts, we'll provide glasses, china and silverware. Of course, if you don't have enough on hand, you could certainly ask your guests to bring things to serve their food as well.

We broke the courses down this way this year:
Appetizers: Each couple is making an hors d'oeuvre or canape to go with a sparkling wine I'll provide. So, we'll have four little nibbles to start.
First Course: The first volunteer couple will prepare a soup or salad. Since this is first course, it's likely to be paired with a white wine.
Second Course: This one is wide open. Could be fish, chicken or even a pasta dish. Since it's a bridge between first course and main dish, wine could be a heavier white or even a light-style red.
Third Course: Here comes the entree. Red wine for sure.
Fourth Course: Since the dinner is about wine and good food, we won't pass up the chance to have a selection of cheeses at this point. With an even bigger red.
Fifth Course: The dessert finale. Could be chocolate something with a powerful red like Cabernet. Or a dessert wine with just about anything. Or even back to a sparkling wine. This couple gets to be really creative.

There's four couples so each does an appetizer and one other course. I'm picking up the extra course and will be matching several cheeses with a red for the fourth course.

The party's this Saturday night, so I'll report back and let you know what everyone comes up with. Hopefully, it will provide inspiration for you to host your own with a couple of your food and wine-loving pals.