Picking the perfect wine is going to be one of the highlights of your wedding and could help people remember your wedding reception for years to come. However, picking the perfect wine comes with a number of considerations like budget, season, food, etc. here are some key pointers that can help you choose the perfect wine for your wedding.
Choosing a serving style
If you don’t want to pick a single type of wine for the entire reception, you can pick a sparkling wine to kick the reception off, use champagne for the toasts and simply offer a red or white wine with the meal. This might help you shave the cost down a bit though you can also try including a cocktail starter if you want to keep your spending on wine on the lower end.
Servings per guest
A widely popular serving style dictates that you should provide half a bottle of wine per guest for a reception lunch and around three-quarters of wine per guest for an evening reception.
The quantity
If you have compiled your wedding guest list yourself, you would know exactly how much wine you can expect to be consumed at your wedding. Another great option to ensure that you don’t run out of drinks at your wedding is to make sure that your wine merchant has a sale-or-return policy in place. This would help you keep the wine flowing at the event and you’d still be able to return the unopened bottles.
Per bottle spending
You may want your wedding to be the epitome of you’re fine tastes in life, but you must remember that most people are looking to simply get drunk and have a good time at such events and the finesse of expensive fine wine is usually lost on wedding guests. Unless you are blessed with a family of wine connoisseurs, you should be able to get away with spending less than £5 per bottle on your wedding wine though you can always go for the pricier options if your wedding is extremely small.
Account for the season
Though most people choose to simply pair the wine for their wedding to their menu choice, one must also remember that the season in which the wedding has to take place will also have a great bearing on the guests’ enjoyment of the drinks. For summers, light and mellow red like cabernet and merlot blends from Argentina, South Africa, Australia or Chile would be superb while lighter wines like Rieslings from Germany or New Zealand, Sancerre, sauvignon blanc or any other citrusy whites are great for spring or summer wedding though if you can’t decide on any of them, just go with rose. For wintertime, wine warmers like Shiraz from Australia, rioja and tempranillo from Spain or Burgundy and Bordeaux from France are generally preferred and for an autumn ceremony, chardonnay, white rioja, and burgundy would be perfect.
Keep your wedding menu in mind
A great rule of thumb when picking a wine for your wedding is to simply pair the wine to the food that you will be serving. Whether it is a full-blown three-course traditional wedding menu or a bohemian barbeque or even the oft preferred buffet style, you should generally pick the wine to suit the flavors of the entre and the kind of meat that you will be offering. If you aren’t too sure about which wines go with the menu you have planned, simply ask your wine merchant for advice or sample the caterer’s pick and see if it works for you. Also, remember that a complex and fuller wine is required to go with richer dishes while a lighter style of wine would do admirably with lighter food styles.
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