Taking wine as "gift" to dinner party

WINE TALK
21

Yes. [snort.gif]

Maureen,
Amy’s response was classic!

22

It helps, if you intend it as a gift, to “wrap” it as a gift (nice wine bag), and if it’s a white, to not chill it, and sometimes to say something like “for your cellar” or “this should be really good in about 5 years” when you hand it over. Mostly only an issue with people you don’t know very well.

23

On the other hand, no one ages cakes!

24

If you call or email them in advance and inform them you are bringing a bottle to share with them, then it should be opened. Otherwise it is up to the host.

If you are not sure, bring something you have two of.

Sent from mobile

25

You either bring wine as a gift or you bring wine to open-- If you present wine as a gift and are pissed that it didn’t get opened, or that they poured juice of lesser prestige… you’ve got deeper issues to investigate…

26

I am just wondering if the wines served were something good that a man who would bring California Pinot Noir would not have appreciated. [stirthepothal.gif]

27

My friends and I are for the most part way less formal so bringing wine to a party and opening it is no big deal in fact it’s kind of expected. The more the merrier.

28

When I bring wine to someone’s house, I never expect it to be opened, but I always open wine that others bring over to my house, regardless of whether it goes with the food or is a great wine or whatever.

29

Brian,

I guess you’re not a Jewish New Yorker. It’s sort of expected to bring dessert. [wink.gif]

30

Uhh, I guess not. That’s not the way we roll in the West – Mid or otherwise.

31

But, again, isn’t that more than a bit presumptuous of a guest?

In a lot of cases I find my friends doing what Bruce outlines above where people bring a dish and a bottle. That’s different as are all of the ‘come over and we’ll grill stuff’ summer get togethers. If someone’s doing an actual dinner party though, and you’ve been told you don’t need to bring anything, to show up with wine and expect it to be served is a bit arrogant. “But I’m sharing it with you!” Yeah, well if I’ve spent days thinking about the menu, prepping cooking and matching wines, that’s NOT OK. If I’ve asked you to bring something great. If it’s a casual thing, great. But in some cases, not great.

As Howard correctly said above, communication is key. But you’re the guest. Act like a guest, not a co-host.

32

True, but I assumed that the host and I at least know each other a bit…which makes my approach fine. If I am a random “don’t know each other” guest I’d probably take Serge’s approach and decant it in advance…try to put that in the cellar. Oh, and I’d bring flowers for your wife…so that could be the gift.

I don’t like knowing stuffy people, and I don’t like being stuffy… anything goes and it’s all good. [cheers.gif]

33

I think we all probably take things a little too seriously.

34

It’s not stuffiness - it’s manners.

I don’t like the ‘decant it in advance’ if you don’t know the person that well (friend of a friend, business collegaue, etc). You’re forcing people to drink what you brought… and you’re the GUEST. For friends? Yeah, that’s fine. I’d bet that’s what most of us do. But in cases where you don’t know the person well or they’ve explicitly said they’re doing a meal with matching wines? It’s a dick move to force the issue.

If you did that to me and I’d already told you I was carefully matching wines AND you didn’t bring some that was a good match (you know I’m doing an all seafood course and bring a young Syrah…)? I’d be tempted to thank you, say it will probably show nicely with more air time and put it in the fridge… [stirthepothal.gif] On the other hand, if it was a thought out match for one of the dishes? I’d pour thank you and pour it. All about the intent, really.

35

First off, the response was funny and biting. I was actually with the letter writer somewhat until his obnoxious signoff. Wait, was tat you that wrote this letter Mike Grammer? [wow.gif]

Kidding aside, coincidentally both Mike and I were at a friend’s housewarming party yesterday and it probably makes an excellent case study. Here’s how it all went down:

  1. We were invited to the party by e-mail and both offered to bring a food offering and wine in response to the e-mail invite.

  2. Upon seeing we were both offering to bring wine due to Replying to All, we corresponded with each other on what we have that we’d like to try with everyone and each other and made sure to CC the friend involved so she knew what was coming.

  3. Because we specifically corresponded that we were bringing these wines for all of us to try, it was clear that these would be opened. However, they were also gifts in the sense that due to the sheer number of wines brought by everyone (not just us), it was clear we would never finish them all and the host was more than welcome to keep the leftover open wines which we know for a fact from previous experience she would drink with her boyfriend.

A leftover wine may not seem like much of a “gift,” but bear in mind that we brought a number of high-end pricier wines between the two of us and she is very much a wine drinker and there was plenty left over for her to enjoy on her own.

  1. Our open communication allowed our other friends to bring wine for our host to do with as she wished. They made no announcement that they were bringing wine for everyone to try and simply showed up with bottles purchased from the LCBO. In other words, it was clear that these were straight up gifts for her. Therefore, there was no obligation to open them and they were hers to do with as she wished. In fact, since they all knew we were bringing pricier wines, this took some pressure off of them to spend a lot of money on their gift wines. It’s the thought that counts. In the end, only one gift wine was opened.

  2. At the end of the night, I double-checked to make sure the hostess would in fact drink the leftover open wines as I know for a fact that she throws anything she won’t drink (i.e. leftover sodas and wines she doesn’t like) straight down the drain. Once assured nothing would go to waste, there was no need to offer to take them off of her hands which I have done previously with wines she doesn’t like so they aren’t taking up space in her fridge.

I guess in the end it all comes down to open communication and how well you know the other people. In the original letter writer’s case, since it was a friend of his wife’s and not his own friend, he should’ve played it conservatively and treated the wine as a straight up gift and brought something less expensive. If he didn’t want to drink plonk, he should’ve made clear he was bringing wine to open and drink with the meal. Since he didn’t, tough noogies. pileon

36

If she throws anything she won’t drink straight down the drain, then why would you have been worried that the bottles were going to take up space in her fridge? Wasn’t the real reason you double-checked with her that you would have preferred to take them home and drink them yourself rather than have her throw any remainder down the drain?

37

Ha ha. Good call, Brian. Yes, I certainly would rather have drunk them myself than let them go to waste if I knew for sure they were going down the sink. :slight_smile: Virtuous yet completely self-serving at the same time. :stuck_out_tongue:

In all seriousness, her fridge was already full with a dozen bottles of liquor given to her by a mutual friend of ours who moved to Costa Rica plus she had to deal with all the leftover food and several bottles of opened wine so I just checked to see if she was okay with it all. She was actually a little bit overwhelmed as to what to do with all the leftover food and wine during cleanup. Her boyfriend did some creative fridge rearranging as I helped clean up. :slight_smile:

For the record, I personally do not recommend asking anyone other than a very good friend you are comfortable with if they ever need an open bottle of wine taken off of their hands. Not sure how others here deal with it, but I have both left behind and taken leftover wine from good friends (and only good friends) without any issue.

38

Thanks for this, Maureen, funny response is right. Depending on the circumstances, I concur with a) Chris S’s post, b) Mark M’s post, c) Howard’s post. Yes, if I bring, it’s up to the host whether to open or not. As Howard says, communication is usually the way to go to make sure that, if that’s important to you, the wine you bring is one that is served. e.g. I often party-hop on New Year’s Eve to 3 different friends’ places. They all know now that I will contribute wine for everyone, ergo it gets opened. As Tran notes, for our friend Hope’s get-together, there had been some communication in advance between some of us who were coming and Hope had herself invited us to bring anything we might like to share.

For my own dinner parties, I am absolutely in Mark’s camp. I WON’T open a wine a guest brings, because I have carefully selected the wines and food that are being served. But then there’s Howard’s post. Any guest of mine knows weeks in advance what the menu and the wines will be, so that solves it…at least, I hope. It’s worked so far through countless dinners and I seem to have retained the friends. Of course, it helps that I have yet to poison any guest with my food :slight_smile:

And, although it makes many of my friends uncomfortable, I do insist as an inviolable rule that you are not permitted to bring anything to a dinner party if you are a first-timer. After that, I relax the rule. But, sappy as it sounds, my guests are giving me the very precious gift of their time and willingness to spend an evening with me. For me, that is more than enough. It also avoids the awkward situation of one guest bringing and another not.

BT, you ask a very fair and telling question re sets of friends.

39

The mistake was not in bringing two bottles - the mistake was taking them both in! Leave one in the car - tell them you are going out for a smoke - refill the glass - everyone is happy…

40

Since the generally understood etiquette is that it’s a gift, it’s up to us wine geeks to know and expect that. It’s up to us to communicate and try to transform a new relationship into a more wine geek friendly one. If it’s an unknown, I’ll just bring something I know is good and have more of. I may “just happen” to have some more interesting stuff in the car, in case the evening evolves in a way that opening more interesting stuff would be appreciated.

With my wine friends it’s mostly very informal. I just bring a bunch of wines, open whatever seems appropriate, and take home the rest. That gives options, so you can play it by ear, and allows you to bring back-ups.