Saturday, October 28, 2006, was the date of the 4th annual McAdams Wine Party!  The party has evolved a bit over the 4 years.  The first year, we had 6 people, then just 4 the next.  Last year, we had 12, and this year 10.  We’d go bigger, but this time of year is tough to get on people’s schedules.  The group we had were all friends from church, and we had a great time!

When "wine party" is mentioned, ideas of pretentious terms, snobby reviews and tedious guests can come to mind.  We try to stay away from that; our idea is to have fun and try something new.  We start with a theme and move on from there.

This year’s theme was:

The idea was to get people to try something they may not have had before.  Each couple brings two bottles, one red, one white.  I do the food, as it’s my time to just have fun with party food.  This is the one party a year that I don’t let people bring anything but wine.

To start the evening, I opened a bottle that didn’t fit the theme: a 1997 Vine Cliff Cabernet Sauvignon.  The wine is rated in the high 90’s, and proved to be as good as expected.  The reason for opening this bottle was to toast Woody, who some have heard about.  My dog is gone now, and we only had the party because he wasn’t there; the amount of people would have been too much for him.  So I wanted to acknowledge my dog’s memory.  My friends were kind enough to indulge me in this, too.

After everyone got situated, I had the food ready.  The proper wine party doesn’t serve food until later, but this is how we "roll" (sorry, just had to say that… seems like one of those horrible popular slang terms now… I still don’t say "24/7". 

For food for the night, I did a variety of things, though, as usual, I mostly cooked it outside.  I did some more bread, and, this time, I really got it right!
I did baguettes and fougasse, and the things I changed were mostly that I did a better job shaping the bread, I sprayed it with water right before putting it in the oven, and I cooked at full convection instead of bake or convection/bake.  The bread was fantastic!  Better crust than I thought I’d get out of my oven.  I also slashed the dough better before baking, so I got better crust expansion.

Along with the bread, we had several types of cheese which were all pretty decent in their own way.  The thing about cheese is that people’s tastes are so varied.  I love them all, but some people tend to hate bleu cheeses (like my wife), while others really like them.  So I get a variety to try to give everyone some of what they enjoy. 
I did a tomato/fresh mozz salad with fresh basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

For meats, I got some great thick cut pork chops, smoked them and finished them on the grill to get some caramelization.  Then I cut them into slices and topped it all with a merlot (Argentinian) wine reduction with porcini mushrooms.  Good stuff!  I also did a large porterhouse that I cut into strips…
Nothing extra done to it, as it’s so good just like that!  We also had a variety of grilled sausages: pork/jalapeno, hot italian and chicken/apple.  The last thing grilled was some asparagus, some wrapped in proscuitto.

The last thing I fixed was Ahi tuna, chimney charred.  This stuff is great!  If you haven’t tried it, you need to!

After everyone got what they wanted to eat, we settled down a bit.  My wife does great fall decorating, and the table was decked out for the party with corks from about any wine that has been opened at our house since we’ve lived there.  We had wine cards with info on wines, autumn leaves, coasters, and candles lit. 

I do want to upgrade my everyday cheap wine glasses, but the ones we had were enough.  Everyone had one for red wines and one for whites, and we had water and jugs to empty what they didn’t drink.

The first wine was a white Sauvignon Blanc.  Kammie is showing her unbiased reaction to the wine.

If you haven’t had a wine party because it seems to snooty or too foreign, get some friends together and try it.  Or, if you don’t want wine, do a beer tasting, or coffee.  Just come up with an excuse to make some great food, get together with great friends, and have an event to look forward to every year!

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