Hosting a wine night for friends

I am hosting 6-7 friends who are fairly new to wine but are excited and interested in learning more. I have no doubt that the night will be fun regardless of how people take to the wines, but I of course and being slightly neurotic. I plan on opening 4 bottles: a 2015 Joh. Jos. Prüm Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett, a 2012 Evening Land Seven Springs, 2005 La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904, and a 2012 Chateau Fonplegade more or less in that order. The only request my friends made was for no Cali Cab so I thought this lineup would give decent variety and overall enjoyment for the night.

While the wines are more or less set for the night, any suggestions would of course be welcomed. Only thing I ask is that any suggestions be more or less in the same price range. Also, I am slightly worried about the the order of the rioja and the bordeaux. Will the order I present those two really matter?

Sounds fun, Jerome. I might actually throw in a fifth bottle, but that depends more on the crowd and how much they want to drink. Starting with a Champagne and/or ending with a dessert wine might be fun.

I have not personally tasted it, but from everything I’ve read, that Prum will be the WOTN, and it won’t even be close.

Don’t underestimate the extent to which off-dry Riesling is strange and unfathomable to inexperienced drinkers. I bet the Rioja 904 wins hands down. I love both wines

I’m with Noah on this actually. I feel like I will love the Prum and almost everyone else will think the Rioja is mind blowing. I will def report back Thursday night after it’s over with the results!

How’s the oak treatment on the Rioja?

If you prep your palate with Riesling, then afterwards the oaked wines will taste just horrible.

In the presence of lesser wines, I’d always serve Riesling last [which pretty much means that Riesling always goes last].

Oh i dont know…Ive never met anyone new to wine who didnt love prum and those 15s are stupid good. Met lots of people who found rioja too tannic at first, me included…cant wait to hear…

I’m hoping the pinot will be a good transition between the prum and the rioja.

This is a good idea. I think sparkling and dessert wines are very under appreciated. You can find a nice grower Champagne or Port/Sherry/Madeira for about $50.

I tend to always start with champagne and end with Sauternes but ymmv

is the seven Springs wine the Pinot or the Chardonnay? If Chardonnay, I would do that wine first. If Pinot, then after the Riesling.

Regarding following up the Riesling, you might want to offer some food which might help prepare their palates for the next wine. For example, prior to tasting the Rioja, take a 5 minute break between and have an appetizer which contains a bit of olives and/or chorizo or proscutto. This should help setup the Rioja and the Bordeaux in case the riesling had any residual sugar or sweetness of fruit.

With a back-up 6th and 7th!

Jerome, do you have anything that is mature, in that prime drinking window?

That Prum is strong, by the way. The vintage is pretty ripe to me, drinks like a Spat, so I suspect your guests will like it or love it.

It’s the Pinot.

The bottle that would be a candidate for drinking best now would be a 2007 Andrew Will Champoux Vineyard. I love it but I don’t know how well a WA Bdx would go over with a new group. Maybe I could bring a 2014 Marcel Lapierre Morgon to throw in a twist. I was also thinking of bring a 2014 Varner Bee Block since I don’t think anyone at the group has met a Chard not named KJ before. Would the Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett be a more moderate choice if I want to go more off-dry than ripe?

With 6-7 guests plus yourself, going with at least a fifth bottle makes sense. I would select something based on Syrah or a Syrah-based blend to contrast.

Depending on how geeky you want to get, have your guests write down their impressions on the wines by themselves, and then have them revisit the wines with food to see how that changes their impressions.

Bruce

and don’t take this as a joke. On our own we often don’t finish a bottle between two of us, yet when we had the regular tasting events we might open 1.5 bottles per person. Now that’s not necessarily quite as bad as it sounds, as we’d typically only drink just over half the bottle on the first ‘pass’, leaving the remnants for the end of the evening. Once the full first pass of the evening was complete, we’d then serve up some more substantial food than the bread / antipasti / etc. that was out to start. This was a chance to re-try the wines with food and a little air, but was always the infallible ‘voting system’, as the first bottle to be drained was typically the most liked and some never even got a 2nd taste. It often ended up with 2-3 bottles having significant enough residue for someone to take the bottle with them for the following day.

In addition corked / faulty wines do occur, with sometimes it affecting consecutive bottles (this happened to us about a week ago). Thus I would recommend listing 6 bottles, but having 2-3 sat in reserve. This is better than planning no reserves and then making a rushed non-sober decision in the cellar, often resulting in a really interesting wine being drunk too soon and where few remember much about it!

I’ve tried a handful of 2015 Kabinetts, and the Prum was by far the best. Miles better than similarly priced 2015 Donnhoff and Grunhauser recently.

4 bottles, especially one being Riesling, isn’t a lot for a wine night for 7-8 people, but maybe they don’t drink much. Have other bottles on hand at least.

Maybe I should have prefaced all this with the fact that this event will be on a Thursday night since weekends are difficult for all of us to get together. We therefore all need to be able to get home at a reasonable time to wake up on Friday as fully functional adults. Maybe I should switch out the Himmelreich for a Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett in order to keep it more on the off-dry side?

Will there be food with any of the wines?

Some of the people are bringing snacks, so I don’t really know what food is going to be there.

3oz pours of four different wines, on a Thursday night, with no food, is plenty of booze.

If they want to get more drunk that that, then they shouldn’t be drinking on a school night.