I enjoy consuming wine in the confines of a home, whether it’s ours or a friend’s. There is something wonderfully comfortable about the ability to let your hair down, drink as much as you like, and talk as long, loud, or crass as you can.
An added bonus is the ability to have our Yorkie, Schrumpf, around as entertainment.
Wine parties in our home can range from an impromptu girl talk with one of my besties over a Sauvignon Blanc, to a planned dinner with different friends from all over the world (for which I cook like a madwoman).
We started this week off with a planned (postponed, then planned again) dinner with one of our favorite wine-os, E. The conversation ranged from wine, the wine industry, consulting gigs, traveling, growing up in the south, to crass observations about E and my husband’s batchmates.
E brought over bottles of Georges Deobeuf, one of my favorite labels to use as a teaching demonstration tool. Georges is simple, clean, affordable, and easy to drink. Give it a chance and you’ll find a very simple, easy to drink wine from the Beaujolais (stop being a wine snob!) and Burgundy region. Went well with the Gino’s pizza and pasta we got, the lamb chops I made, and the gabfest.
The highlight of this week, however, was a long overdue, post-birthday dinner hosted by one of our favorite people, Debbie (not his real name).
See, I met Debbie earlier this year in a language school. I instantly liked him and his geeky, artsy humor. We would often get in trouble with our teacher for talking too much (in the language we were learning, we promise!).
Debbie is such an all around good guy that my husband and I could not help but root for him in his romantic endeavors, then emphatizing when he got friendzoned (*shakes fist at the universe*).
Debbie travels so much, and after initially thinking he would be away so long, voila! He returned to Manila. To celebrate his arrival and to send off one of our good friends from the language school, my husband and I hosted a dinner. SZC’s gratin and stuffed bell peppers, cheese, tons of Chilean Carmenere and Chardonnay… Affordable, good quality wines when you’re going for decent vino without breaking the bank.
During that dinner, Debbie was so excited, thrilled, and butt-crazy happy to announce that, yay, he was dating one of the loveliest ladies in town.
In fact, Debbie was so excited, he broke two of our red wine glasses from gesticulating.
But two broken wine glasses notwithstanding, we could not be happier.
Fast forward to last night, after several travels, gimmicks, and birthdays… Debbie, the lovely lady, and their puppies had us (Schrumpf included) over for a killer dinner (courtesy of Debbie’s kitchen, heeheehee) and a bottle of Margaux. This bottle was an elegant, earthy, old world take on a Cabernet Sauvignon… So elegant and smooth it was perfect for so much conversation that we lost track of time.
It must be said, by the way, that Debbie felt so terrible about the wine glass incident that as a belated birthday present, he gifted me with a wine glass. Like the sweetheart that he is. 😉
It’s been such a whirlwind past few days that I couldn’t take photos of the dinners as they happened… But here’s the requisite morning after shot.
So Debbie, here’s an almost full article dedicated to you. Cheers to your happiness and more glasses of wine! Teeheehee…
Do share fun wine dinner parties in your home. Cheers!
