CHAPTER NINE
Hosting & Entertaining
This may come as a shock, but the true joy of wine isn’t just drinking it. It’s drinking it with loved ones. After all, what’s the point of knowing all this stuff if you don’t have anyone to talk about it with? In this chapter, I’m going to teach you how to take your skills from the bottle to the table so you can invite all your friends over and share all your wine with them. All right, not all of it. Let’s not be hasty.
(Fact: You will get drunk and share all of it.)
If I was a rapper, half of my verses would be about how I’m the best host in the world. Bold, I know. I’m not even drunk and I’m this sure of myself. But that is because it’s true. I’m a natural-born entertainer who also happens to be a perfectionist with an eye for color, composition, and empty glasses. And I got it all from my momma.
My mom, Gail, is one of the greatest hosts of all time, I daresay better than Martha and Gwyneth combined. Growing up, we were constantly entertaining: dinner parties with full table sets of vintage china, holiday parties with multiple trees dressed better than actresses going to the Oscars, “Thank fuckin’ God the softball season is over” parties with more dips than any human should even know exist. She was singlehandedly responsible for my slight bump in popularity in junior high after a string of birthday and Halloween parties that featured seven-foot snack spreads and the biggest bounce houses available for rent. All with matching serving ware, mind you.
No matter the purpose of the party, my mom approached every event with the same amount of preparation, attention to detail, and focus on fun. There was always a theme and a color scheme, with food, bevvies, and a full six-disc CD changer to set the mood. Her infectious laugh rang from the kitchen, and every task was performed with a smile. And while I knew how much work went into these get-togethers at the Ross Residence, a guest would never know that it was anything more than the twist of my mother’s wrist spiraling a stack of color-coordinated napkins on the corner of a table. My mother had a way of making sure no one ever had a want in the world. Everything was always taken care of before you knew it needed to be.
And that is what makes me a great host. It’s not how clean my house is, or the music I play, or my charming personality. What makes me a great host is that there is never an empty glass. Whether we’re eating dinner or chillin’ on the couch or having an impromptu dance party, I’m sharing my wine, and my love of wine, with you.
And just like my mom, people think I just live my life this way. “Oh, all this wine? These glasses? This very specific cheese? Oh, I just had them lying around!”
No. Definitely not. Hosting takes time, effort, practice, and some strategy. But by the end of this chapter, you’ll feel ready to host everything from black-tie dinner parties to Chinese takeout on the couch with your best friends.
CALCULATING HOW MUCH WINE YOU NEED
If you’ve found yourself standing in front of a wall of wine trying to count how many people are coming to dinner and then cursing yourself because what is 750ml really, I feel you. You now know I can’t do math, and I also can’t be bothered to remember simple measurements like how many ounces are in 750ml. For the record, it’s 25 point blah blah ounces.
If you were to remember that a standard bottle of wine has ~25 ounces, and that the suggested wine serving is 5 ounces, you could conclude that for every bottle of wine you get five glasses. You could then apply this to your total number of guests and buy accordingly. This is a logical and fine way of doing things, that I do not personally do.
First of all, five ounces is a joke. Saying you’re going to just have five ounces of wine is the equivalent of claiming you’re going to only have one piece of pizza when we know damn well you are down for two (or eight). Even if you did come across some straight-laced lunatic who was hung up on having exactly five ounces, you would need one of those portion control pour-tops reserved for stingy chain restaurants with ominous “house wines” they can’t bear to give you a single drop extra of. And even if you decided to be diligent about your serving sizes, that would not stop someone like me from rolling up and destroying your portions with my heavy-handed pour I’m not even paying attention to because I’m yelling shitty jokes at someone across the room. No one wants five ounces. They want a goddamn glass of wine, a size that varies wildly depending on the scene.
Trust me, the five-glasses-per-bottle ratio will always leave you coming up short. There are too many variables, and you will end up looking either unprepared or Scrooge-like as you ration the last Syrah. Those are two of the most unbecoming looks as a host. Hosting is essentially (1) looking like you have your shit together and (2) being generous, things you should want in life regardless of how many movie nights you’re trying to throw next summer.
My preferred ratio is four glasses per bottle, though a more accurate description would probably be, “four heavy pours and two swigs,” or as they are known in my household, “four Ross pours and two Ross Tests.” I like this ratio because it gives me the freedom to be rambunctious with my pours. Few things pleasure me quite like filling guests’ glasses with the carefreeness of a chart-topping hip-hop artist popping Champagne in the club for their crew.
In a perfect world, I would have enough wine to fill every glass to the moon and back. Unfortunately, we live in a world where reality TV stars can become president, smoking weed is still a federal offense, and writers’ signing contracts are nowhere near sport stars’. In other words, the world is not perfect, so it’s important to estimate how many glasses you have per person.
For dinner parties, I generally allot two to three glasses per person. If I just got paid, I will buy one bottle of wine per person. If this sounds a little excessive, well, it is. But wine is my life, and sharing it brings me immense happiness. Plus, I’m a wine writer, and that brings with it a certain type of expectation. People come over to my house and they want to drink everything, so I need to be heavily stocked so I don’t end up opening some Beaujolais cru I’m supposed to be aging for the next five years.
If I’m hosting a house party, though, there’s no way I am buying one bottle per person. Gamay may run in my blood, but I am not made of bottles. I usually buy six to ten bottles, depending on the size of the party. I know that many partiers are going to be drinking my dope-ass wine and some are going to be drinking our stock of run-of-the-mill beers with equal enthusiasm, so no, not everyone gets a bottle to chug without a thought and then go play glow-in-the-dark bocce ball.
How many glasses of wine you are willing to serve each guest is up to you and your budget. I know I said you should be generous, but that doesn’t mean you should be putting yourself in the pourhouse (HA, NAILED IT) to have some friends over. Be honest with yourself and what you’re comfortable with. Plus, what are friends for if not for bringing more wine? Always ask guests to contribute. Tack it onto the end of the text, make it your new signature: “Please bring wine to share.” People always want to contribute, and it takes some of the pressure off you. It also stops you from opening bottles, more bottles than you allocated for the event, or worse, drunkenly opening something you’ve been saving.
In conclusion, here is the only math I’ll ever do:
Number of Guests × Number of Estimated Glasses Per Guest ÷ 4 = Number of Bottles Needed
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
I’m a very “jeans and a T-shirt” type of person. I like the finer things, no doubt, but I’m fairly no-frills about most things in life. I like good investments and things that are simple and useful, and the same goes for my wine tool kit. You wouldn’t find any DIY wine charms, glitter-dipped Merlot glasses, or cowboy-boot bottle holders in my house. Here are the only things you really need to serve wine like a pro.
One-Size-Fits-All Stemware
Once upon a time, I had multiple sets of wine glasses. I had red-wine glasses, white-wine glasses, hell, I even had Champagne flutes. At twenty-six, I had become an adult. By twenty-seven, I had one red-wine glass, two white-wine glasses, and half a Champagne flute. Having different sets of glasses for different wines is a rich man’s game, which if you are rich and can afford to continually replace all these different glasses as you and your friends inevitably break them, by all means, indulge your whims. I hope one day to be so lucky, but currently, I don’t have the time, money, or energy to be worrying about where I’m going to get a matching vintage Pinot Noir glass now that my favorite Etsy seller has gotten a corporate job.
I’m all about having one standard glass that you serve everything in. Doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it has a stem and you can drink wine out of it. You want glasses with stems because stemless glassware is only good for red wines (your hands warm up the wine while you drink out of them, so they suck for anything cold). My personal go-to is the Crate & Barrel Nattie Red Wine Glass. I like red-wine glasses as my standard glasses because they’re a little bigger than white-wine glasses, and I like them from Crate & Barrel because they are always there and are $3.95, or $28 for a set of eight.
Pro tip: Ask for a set of your preferred wineglasses every year for whatever gift-receiving holiday you celebrate. Not this year, every year. As the year progresses and your glasses start dropping like flies, it’s just a quick trip to your closet to keep your set complete.
Multiple (Double-Hinged) Corkscrews
Corkscrews are integral to the wine-drinking experience. There’s something about the ritual of it, and that popping sound, that is just so exciting. And there are so many types. You’ve got those fancy machine ones your parents give each other for Christmas, the cheap grocery store ones that make opening a bottle of wine as easy as pulling an old nail out of a wall with a crappy hammer, and those plastic ones from hotels that make you understand why people try to open bottles with their shoes. My personal choice is the double-hinged corkscrew.
Relatively self-explanatory, the double-hinged corkscrew (also called a wine key) has an extra hinge for more power while pulling out the cork. It makes it a much smoother experience, and cuts down on having to use Hulk-like strength to pull the cork out.
For entertaining, you need at least two corkscrews available at all times, because everyone misplaces them. I am still looking for my favorite corkscrew I misplaced during a party three months ago! Having multiple corkscrews means you and your guests can be opening bottles and losing corkscrews all over the house, and still be able to serve more wine. And lose more corkscrews, because life is cruel and unrelenting.
Wine Stoppers
When you care about the wines you drink, you want to have stoppers to preserve them for later. I know that you think you’re going to always finish your bottles once you open them. I thought that for a while, too. I also thought that I would never have big pores, and then one day, I woke up and was older, with legit pores, and wished I had put a stopper in that half-full bottle of Spanish Mourvèdre instead of leaving it out and ruining what could’ve made an excellent afternoon snack.
The cork you pull out of the bottle is great for this, but there’s too many unknowns. What if you accidentally trash it? Or your cat has batted it off into the great void under your bed? Or it expanded and just won’t fucking fit? Foil is fine for an emergency and for the illusion that it actually might help keep a wine fresh (it doesn’t—it just keeps fruit flies at bay), but you can’t be doing that regularly.
Decanters & Aerators
Like people, some wines need breathing room. Both old wines and new wines benefit from being decanted since they are bottled up, both literally and figuratively. Their flavors are tight and sharp because they’ve been confined to a small space. Imagine if you were stuck in a closet for three years. You would probably be pretty damn edgy when you got out and you’d need to walk, if not run and jump and do somersaults, in order to chill out and be yourself again. Same principle with wine. Decanting allows a wine to relax and become smoother as its volatile compounds, which may make it taste and smell pungent, “blow off” due to evaporation.
But what happens if you open a wine you didn’t know needed to be decanted when everyone is already seated for dinner? This is why it’s good to have an aerator. These handy handheld devices make it easy to quickly aerate wine as you pour it into your guests’ glasses. Run the rest of the bottle through the aerator into the decanter, and pray you’re the only one who notices it’s on the acidic side (you probably will be; most people are happy just to be drinking at all).
Plasticware
I’m not a fan of drinking out of plastic. Something about it always takes me back to Solo cups and bad choices. But I am grown enough to put these feelings aside and recognize their necessity when it comes to drinking outside. Whether it’s a picnic at the park or just hanging on your porch, plastic glasses will ensure that your wineglasses won’t be kicked, stepped on, or otherwise destroyed. Sure, you have that extra set of wineglasses for these sorts of accidents, but picking glass out of your lawn isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. Unless it’s a small group of people you trust, and there are plenty of tables around, always go plastic for outdoor hang sessions.
An Ice Bucket, I Guess
I’m not that into ice buckets. They tend to make wines too cold, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say they weren’t helpful when entertaining so you’re not hopping up from the table every forty-two seconds. Use at your discretion, and keep your eyes (mouth) on the wine. If it starts tasting one-noted because it’s so cold, take it out of the bucket to warm up for a bit. The only thing that needs to be served that cold is crappy Pinot Grigio.
Wine Away
I don’t know how I am not paid by this company, considering how often I tell people about them, but this is not sponsored content. Wine Away is a citrus-based spray that is safe on most fabrics, and has saved my entire closet, my sheets, and a fair share of rugs from being annihilated by wine. I keep a bottle in my bathroom so I look considerate to guests, but it’s really because I use it daily. It’s simple to use: Just spray immediately after your spill. Many times it will disappear like magic right in front of your eyes. Just don’t use Wine Away on dry-clean-only items. It doesn’t do anything to the clothes, but it really pisses off dry cleaners.
Spit Bucket (Optional)
As a wine writer, there are days when I am tasting dozens of wines before nightfall and don’t want to be hungover by dinner, so a spit bucket comes in handy. This isn’t an essential accessory to have, but you may need one if you decide to host a more formal wine tasting at your house.
PAIRING FOOD & WINE
There isn’t a good thing in this world that doesn’t rely on balance. From nature to music to relationships, it’s all about harmony between different elements. When pairing food and wine, that is exactly what you’re doing—finding components that complement and play off each other to create an entirely new and delicious experience that neither the dish nor the glass could be on its own. It’s enchanting, like something you put together in Potions class at Hogwarts to charm the pants off your guests.
Much like potions (or pimpin’), pairing ain’t easy. Pairing takes a bit of knowledge, some consideration, and a lot of trial and error. But not only does practice make perfect, it makes for a great excuse to eat, drink, and be merry. Here’s everything you need to know to start practicing your wine pairing skills tonight.
For Starters
You need to know what you’re eating. The flavors of the dish are what influence your wine choices; think of them as the beats that your wine rhymes on top of. Doesn’t matter how great a flow is if it’s not on beat. Is your meal rich and buttery? Or light and salty? Spicy? Earthy? Sweet? Greasy, raunchy goodness? Identifying the dominant flavors and characteristics of your meal is half the work. Once you know the main elements of the dish, you then know what elements you need in a wine to balance and complement it.
The Balancing Act
I don’t know much about cooking. At the time I am writing this, I’ve cooked approximately a dozen times in my whole life. But I’ve watched a lot of Top Chef, and if there’s anything that the goddess Padma, bald eagle Tom, and my pretend mentor Gail have taught me, it’s that a great dish has a balance of fat, acid, salt, and sweet. Those are the same qualities you’re looking for to find an equilibrium between what you’re eating and what you’re drinking.
Fatty Foods
I wish there was a less crude classification for these foods, one that feels less like I’m shaming them and more like I’m celebrating the joy cheeseburgers bring into my life, but alas. The “Fatty Foods” category covers all meat, as well as dishes featuring butter or cream sauces. I’ve broken this down by two categories, lighter and darker, based on the physical color of the dishes. It’s the easiest way for me to remember it, and hopefully for you, too. Acidic wines pair well with lighter dishes like salmon, chicken, pork, and dishes with butter or cream sauces. The acid cuts through the fat, leaving your mouth feeling refreshed and ready for another bite. Tannic wines pair well with darker fatty foods like steak, lamb, and all that other red meat carnivore stuff. While tannins dry up and neutralize some of the fat’s richness, the richness of the fat also keeps your mouth from drying up like the Sahara from high tannin levels.
PRACTICE WITH:
Grilled Salmon & Pinot Noir
Steak & Cabernet Sauvignon
Roast Chicken & Grüner Veltliner
AVOID AT ALL COSTS: Sweet wines like off-dry Rieslings or Chenin Blancs, and dessert wines like Port
Acidic Foods
You’d think you’d want something sweet to balance out acidic foods, but it’s actually better to pair with a wine that adds more acid. Counterintuitive, I know. But bright dishes featuring citrus, tomatoes, and salad dressings like vinaigrette will crush wines with less acidity than the dish itself, leaving the wine lifeless and tasting dull in comparison.
PRACTICE WITH:
Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce & Sangiovese
Citrus Salad & Txakoli
Panzanella & Vermentino
AVOID AT ALL COSTS: Low-acidity wines
Salty Foods
Salty foods like oysters, parmesan, or anything fried do well with acidic wines. The saltiness of the dish is tempered by the tartness of the acid, and by the same token, the salt of the dish brings down the sour flavor of the wine. If you want to throw your salt tooth a party, pop some sparkling wine. The number one palate cleanser recommended by wine professionals, sparkling wines scrub salt off your palate and make you hungry, and thirsty, for more. If you have a sweet tooth, pair your salty dish with a sweeter wine for a contrast as delightful as dipping French fries in milk shakes.
PRACTICE WITH:
Fried Chicken & Champagne
Chinese Food & Chenin Blanc
Bleu Cheese & Sauternes
AVOID AT ALL COSTS: Tannic wines
Sweet Foods
There are two schools of thought on sweet foods. Some people treat them like acidic foods, insisting you need a wine that is sweeter than the dish or you run the risk of the wine tasting blasé. I’m guessing those people have serious sweet teeth, though, because I’m from the school that thinks pairing sweet wines with sweet foods is overkill. I prefer wines that have hints of sweetness, but aren’t lighter and sweeter than the dessert.
PRACTICE WITH:
Chocolate Cake & Port
Apple Pie & Vouvray Moelleux
Anything & Amaro
AVOID AT ALL COSTS: Dry wines
Spicy Foods
Of all the dumb, baseless urban legends out there, my least favorites are the one where a bunch of spiders hatch from a woman’s face, and the one about how you can’t drink wine with spicy foods. Preposterous! But I understand the origin of this myth, unlike the Chupacabra. Pairing wine with spicy foods is hard, because spice is not a flavor but a feeling, and alcohol intensifies that sensation. But trust me, sweet and off-dry white wines as well as low-alcohol, fruity, chilled red wines will tame the flame.
PRACTICE WITH:
Fish Tacos & Riesling
Thai Green Curry & Gamay
Pork Vindaloo & Gewürztraminer
AVOID AT ALL COSTS: High-alcohol wines, tannic wines, and oaked wines
Earthy Foods & Fruity Foods, Respectively
Earthy foods, like mushrooms and lentils, and dishes with fruit or heavy fruit components like a glaze or a sauce, are easy. They just want to hang out with likewine’ed bottles.
PRACTICE WITH:
Mushrooms & Nebbiolo
Roasted Pork with Apples & Viognier
And Remember . . .
Sometimes you’re in a hurry or under pressure and the last thing you have time for is contemplating low-alcohol wines versus high-alcohol wines. Here are some quick tips to keep in your back pocket for when you just need a good pairing.
Like Goes with Like. Wines and foods that are similar in weight and/or complexity pair well. Light-bodied wines go with lean meals; full-bodied wines go with rich meals. Complex wines with multiple layers of flavor should be paired with equally intricate meals, and straightforward wines should be served with simple meals. An elaborate Syrah isn’t going to be enhanced by a salami sandwich you’re eating over the sink, nor will a straightforward Pinot Grigio do much for a much-slaved-over coq au vin.
Where It Grows, It Goes. Whatever country’s cuisine you’re cookin’, there is a good chance their wine will pair well with it. Italian wines with Italian food, New Zealand wine with New Zealand cheese, Oregon wine with a Portlandia marathon. This isn’t foolproof, though—a big, tannic red isn’t going to go with paella just because it’s from Spain.
Tannins Never Go with Bitter. EVER. Tannic wines make bitter foods unbearable to eat. Yes, this includes red wine and chocolate. That’s not real. That’s a sexy lie some marketing person made up to sell more lube.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO PAIR WITH
Above all else, at the end of the day, the most important thing you need to pair your food and wine with is your mouth.
Trying established pairings that consider fats and acids and all that jazz gets you in the habit of thinking and tasting how food and wine work together, but you should try everything. Try pairing your favorite wines with your favorite dishes. Try pairing wines with foods that you just have a feeling will be good together. Try pairing wines you just happen to have with whatever you just happen to be eating. Successful food and wine pairings don’t happen because ACID + ACID FOREVER was carved into the wall of an ancient cellar in France and taken as gospel. Successful food and wine pairings happen because of experimentation.
By “successful,” I mean successful for you. Beyond rules and recommendations and even rational thought, what matters is finding combinations you think are delicious. Hopefully, you share them and everyone else thinks they’re delicious, too, but if not, whatever. Then you know what you’re serving next Friday when you have the house all to yourself.
COURSING WINES WITH DINNER
“Coursing wines” is when you serve specific wines in order, to pair with specific dishes. If you’ve ever had a tasting menu, you’ve probably seen that there is almost always a wine-pairing option. Even if you’re not serving up a flow of small plates, you can still course your wines. You don’t have to—it’s much simpler to buy stuff you like and throw it on the table—but it can add an exciting element to your next gathering. Plus, it solidifies your new place as the “wine friend,” which we all know is the real reason you bought this book.
Coursing your wines with dinner is one of the ultimate curations. Think of it like putting together a playlist. A good playlist takes its listeners on a journey. The first song sets up the overall vibe, the next section steadily increases in tempo leading up to the middle, which should act as the peak of the playlist, followed by a gradual, easy comedown. Each song complements the one before it as well as the one after, bridging moods to produce an overall experience.
Same thing with wine! All you need is your menu and your newfound food-pairing knowledge to get started. Let’s do this.
Wines should always be served lightest to heaviest because as you eat and drink, your palate becomes fatigued, making it harder to pick up on subtler flavors. You don’t want to have a guest walk in and overwhelm their palate with a mug of port before they’ve even had a nosh. Think about your wine courses the same way you would think about food courses. Appetizers are usually on the lighter side, unless you’re stoned at a chain restaurant and have to have a Blooming Onion. But since you’re not running an Outback out of your basement, remember appetizers are light. They are followed by increasingly substantial courses, like salad, soup, mains, desserts.
It’s easy to want to base “lightest to heaviest” on color, but it should be based on body. Red will almost always be your entrée wine unless you’re serving a delicate fish, but sparkling wines, white wines, rosé wines, and orange wines are all interchangeable for everything leading up to that, based on their weight.
But choose wines that pair with your dishes. It’s easy to get caught up in selecting the light- to full-bodied choices and forget all about the food. But complementing your dishes is a big part of why you’re doing this, so bring your menu along with you when you go shopping for selections.
Have a light arrival wine. You know in the movies when you see a party at a mansion and there’s a butler right inside the door with a tray of full Champagne flutes? Keep that in mind as you play host. You don’t need to get a tux and serve up Krug, but the arrival wine should be light, easy, and acidic to get everyone’s mouths watering and ready to eat. Also note that this wine should not be the highlight of the evening. If your friends are anything like mine, you will tell them five, and half of them will show up at six and be all sorts of butthurt that they missed out on something special you served an hour ago. (Serves them right, honestly. There is nothing I hate more than lateness, but a good host is gracious and shouldn’t hold grudges. I do, but you know what they always say: “Do as I say not as I begrudge.”)
Don’t repeat flavors. You wouldn’t have two cucumber soups on a menu, or make half your playlist the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed. There are always exceptions, like if your dinner’s theme is all about different variations on a single ingredient, or if you’re hosting my dream dinner of “Gamay Five Ways.” But generally, you want to vary the flavors. This doesn’t mean you can’t serve multiple sparkling wines, or even two Chardonnays—just make sure they are different enough to make, well, a difference!
Keep bottles stocked for provisional, between-course, and rambunctious drinking. No matter how well you course things and try to keep people on track, there’s no stopping guests from drinking when they want to drink. Pick something that is (1) light enough that you could sneak a glass between small bites and salads without disrupting your courses, (2) food-friendly enough that you won’t mind if it makes its way onto the table along with your main course, and (3) inexpensive enough that you won’t mind if your college buddy decides to throw back a couple bottles for dessert.
Don’t Get Too Complicated. This is a mistake I often make. My husband will choose the menu, and I will pore over the ingredients, asking a million questions: Is rosemary the dominant flavor? Are all these leeks going in the soup? What is the orange for? I research the recipes and catch myself trying to find “the right” bottles, obsessed with highlighting and nuancing and creating this whole experience that no one is thinking about nearly as intensely as I am. Your guests will appreciate the meal, whether or not the Sancerre really ties the fennel dish together, so skip the stress and just have fun.
PAIRING YOUR WINE WITH MUSIC
Before I wrote about wine, I wrote about music. Never professionally, aside from a handful of paychecks from Pitchfork, but I wrote about it for the same reasons I write about wine. Music, like wine, can transport you. You can be minding your own business, living your life, and then one of those songs comes on. Suddenly, you’re somewhere else, like your old best friend’s living room after the beach that one day, when the sun came in the windows just so and illuminated it in a golden glow as you danced on the couch and laughed until you cried, all salty and smelling of sunscreen. Music makes you feel something, often a lot of things! And together, music and wine have the power to shape a party.
This isn’t just me being a weirdo that can’t separate the things that I love. It’s science. There have been a number of studies that indicate that music can change how you taste a wine. In 2010, Heriot-Watt University published a study that concluded, “Results reported here indicate that independent groups’ ratings of the taste of the wine reflected the emotional connotations of the background music played while they drank it. These results indicate that the symbolic function of auditory stimuli (in this case music) may influence perception in other modalities (in this case gustation).” In other words, the wine will take on whatever characteristics you’re hearing in the song. If it’s a brooding folk album that makes you think of your family cabin, you may taste a woodsy depth in your glass, just like you may feel a tinge of lemonade acidity while listening to surf rock.
A few years ago, I attended a blind tasting at a winery that focused on the effects of music on wine. The tasting was a mix of winery guests and industry professionals, wine merchants and beverage directors. We were all blindfolded, and different wines were served at the same temperature in black glasses, so there was no way to cheat. Each wine was served with a different song, and we would go around the room debating on what wine we were being served.
The effect of the music was most apparent in the middle of the tasting. One glass was served with a super-poppy song. One glass was served with a Fleet Foxes song. One glass was served with a slow, moody song. The guesses for each song ranged wildly. Everyone associated the wine we drank during the poppy song with bright, white wines. Fleet Foxes provoked discussions of medium-bodied wines both red and white, and the moody song had everyone going very dark in their guesses.
No one guessed Zinfandel.
And no one guessed that it was Zinfandel in all three glasses.
Now picture yourself as the badass host that you are. You’ve picked up a few bottles of your new favorite wine to share with your friends tonight. You all have similar taste and this is right up their alley, a bright, spunky, and fruity red that is even good when chilled. You’re one hundred percent confident it’s going to be the new crew go-to, the wine of the summer. “Everyone is going to think it’s Gamay, boy, will I have them fooled! HA HAAAA!” you laugh triumphantly to yourself. This will be your moment. Your wine!
You uncork the bottle, pour, and eagerly watch them drink it, like you’re forcing them to watch your favorite TV show and keep looking over to see if they’re laughing. But they’re not laughing. And the wine is “Good.”
Good?! This was supposed to be their new favorite wine! How are you friends with these people? They’re crazy. You try it yourself, incredulous, and realize . . . they’re right. It’s not fantastic. It’s not the best thing since the original seasons of Arrested Development. It’s just, fine.
There are many reasons why a wine’s taste could vary from one bottle to another, even in the same vintage. But maybe—just maybe—it tastes different because Bright Eyes came on shuffle. Everyone groaned the groan of the emo generation and told you to turn that shit off, but you didn’t. You let a slow bummer of a song play as you encouraged everyone to tip their glasses of fun, zippy wine to their frowning lips. Considering Fleet Foxes can make Zinfandel taste like Viognier, it isn’t that far-fetched to think that Bright Eyes may have blown your bottle.
Even if that scenario is a little far-fetched, pairing music with your wine is still a good idea, if only to save the mood of your party from shuffle disasters. Whether you’re handpicking a playlist, throwing on some records, or selecting a Spotify radio station, choose music that enhances your wine’s flavors and elevates your get-together’s vibes. Here’s how I do it.
Know the vibe. What kind of get-together is this? Dinner party or pajama party? Birthday bash or backyard barbeque? Date night or daaaaate night? Hopefully, you know why people are coming over to your house; if not, definitely figure that out first.
Buy wines based on that vibe. You’ve got this already.
Evaluate wines’ body and acidity. Think about a wine’s body as sweaters and its acidity as energy. The more sweaters you’re wearing, the more you want to get cozy, but the more energy you have, the more you want to dance. The lighter and more acidic the wines are, the more upbeat the jams. It accentuates their brightness and drinkability, and enhances tart fruit and citrus notes. The heavier and richer the wines are, the more chill and down-tempo the music. It complements their warmth and weight, as well as spice and sweetness.
Look outside. Take the weather and the season into consideration. Spring, summer, and sunshine inspire very different music choices than fall, winter, and rain. For me, the warmer months are all about surf rock, poppy oldies, jangly garage bands, bossa nova, hip-hop, and exotica. When it’s colder, I lean toward folk rock, acoustics, evocative vocals, cool jazz, and Christmas music. And still exotica, which throws everyone off. Which brings me to my next point.
Listen to what you want to listen to. I listen to exotica year-round, and I don’t give a damn if someone may find tiki lounge or the occasional tropical bird call unseasonal.
I then take all of these factors into consideration and make an educated selection of music that promotes the vibe of the get-together, complements the wine, and is seasonal. Or I put on Monster Rally, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Hosting isn’t about having the perfect pairings. It isn’t about having specific glassware, or a well-crafted playlist. Those things are nice, but hosting always comes back to being generous. I don’t mean with money spent, or even bottles opened; it’s about being generous with yourself. All it takes to be the best host ever is kindness and good conversation over a glass of wine you can’t wait to share with your guests. (Cheese doesn’t hurt, though.)
To-Drink List:
- Pair wine with dinner using your new pairing tips. Get a good idea of what you’re looking for: red or white, dry or off-dry, acidic or fruity. When you go into the wine shop, instead of asking for what’s new, ask for a dry, acidic white to pair with your grilled chicken, or whatever it is you’re cooking. Extra Challenge: Try pairing with wines you already have in your house. Maybe this is your big chance to use that White Zin that’s been in the fridge since last New Year’s! (Just kidding. That needs to go in the trash immediately.)
- Experience how much music affects the taste of wine by pouring yourself a glass, and sip on it, eyes closed, while listening to three contrasting songs. If you want to really get into it, write down how these songs affected your mood as well as how the wine tastes. Don’t listen to anything too sad, though—I don’t need you falling down a wine hole and texting ex-lovers and watching sappy period pieces all night.
- Get yourself a double-hinged corkscrew. Maybe even get two if you just got paid. Pulltap makes great ones. They are $10 on Amazon and will make opening wine infinitely less shitty.
- Host a little something at your house. Plan some pairings for your favorite wines, maybe put together some music if you have time. Get your guests talking about wine by telling them why you chose the wines you did, and what you love about them, and ask your guests what they think about them. Do they know how to taste wine? Maybe you can give them a few tips. Who knows, you may teach one of them to chew their wine and change their goddamn life.