When it comes to making your wedding day an event that will be remembered for all the right reasons, choosing the right white wine and making sure there is plenty of it, is key. If the wedding reception is to be a leisurely, drawn out affair with a sit-down meal, it’s good practice to keep guests from getting restless by having waiters circulate with bottles of wine before the time comes to sit down to eat. If your budget will stretch to it, champagne is a wonderful pre-dinner drink that will help the guests really get into celebratory spirit. If champers is off the menu for financial reasons, a good sparkling white wine will do the trick. If your wedding reception is a daytime rather than an evening affair, Bucks Fizz (orange juice mixed with bubbly) is a less intoxicating way to refresh the guests.
Planning Your Table Wine
As well as thinking about what wines will be served before the meal, it pays to put thought into which bottles will be on guests’ tables. Look at your seating plans and use your personal knowledge of guests’ tastes to think about the appropriate number of bottles of red and white wine. Will there be children at the table? Are the table’s guests white wine lovers or are many of them keen on red? Splitting the red and white wines equally doesn’t always work, so take your guests’ preferences into account where possible. You’ll also want to make sure that the white wine you choose to accompany the wedding meal will complement the food that is to be served. If your wedding menu is to be particularly extravagant, you won’t want the dining experience to be compromised by an ill-matched wine. You don’t have to pay an expert to choose suitable bottles, just do a little reading into food and wine pairings and pick some white wines that will do the food justice. Again, Chardonnay is a relatively safe choice as it tends to pair relatively well with most foods. Red wines generally prove more of a challenge, as they are often much bolder in flavour. It may pay dividends to serve different wines to accompany each course and, if the budget allows, a nice dessert wine is a good way to round off the meal and goes very nicely with a slice of wedding cake!
Popular Choices
When it comes to choosing the white wines for your wedding it pays to play it relatively safe. While some white wine enthusiasts might be full of talk about the latest discovery from a previously unknown wine producing region, chances are that this bottle might not be to everybody’s taste. Chardonnay may seem a little cliched, but it is the UK’s most popular wine and for most people, even if this is not their favourite tipple, Chardonnay is more than tolerable. If that seems a little too obvious, go for another nice easy-drinking wine like a Pinot Grigio or a Riesling. It doesn’t pay to throw money into the most expensive bottles, either. The idea is to keep guests relaxed and feeling sociable, rather than to try to educate them about fine wines! Make sure there’s enough white wine that guests won’t be left nursing empty glasses, but keep the number of bottles appropriate to the number of wedding guests – you don’t want your guests rolling around drunk before the first dance.
Wedding Toast
If there’s one moment during the wedding ceremony when it pays to invest in quality, it’s the wedding toast. If the budget allows, charging guests’ glasses with a decent Champagne will be appreciated all round. If that’s not an option, scout around for good alternative options – many Spanish Cavas have beaten authentic French Champagnes in blind taste tests and usually come in at a fraction of the cost. Do some research into inexpensive Cavas that deliver an above-average drinking experience and invest in a bulk buy.
Many wine merchants, such as the British chain Majestic, offer great discounts on bulk purchases, so it certainly pays to shop around and look for those offering the best deals.
Keep Things Simple
Planning the white wine for your wedding needn’t be rocket science. Make sure there is plenty to go round but not so much that guests are guzzling it down, stick to choices that are likely to be popular with at least the majority of guests and make sure that you get the best deals to suit your budget.
