Wine and cheese

You may recall the discussion we had just after Xmas regarding the wonderful variety of cheeses we had bought. My wife is a big cheese fan and I bought her about half a dozen different varieties. Whether she will ever get through them all, I have no idea.

Having a fridge full of cheese gave me the idea of hosting a wine and cheese evening. It would be timely too as we didn’t do any entertaining over Xmas. The “event” is earmarked for my wife’s birthday - 1st March.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience of hosting one of these and/or suggestions as to what would be appropriate fayre. Cost would need to be kept to a minimum. We usually cater for 10 - 15 people roughly. We would be looking to provide cheese, wine, crackers, salad, nibbles etc.

Thanks in advance.



G.

 

We did one for my 50th... Went a little crazy on the cheese tbh. Well, we wanted to introduce people here to British cheeses, had just come back from the French alps, have some friends who are allergic to cows milk, etc.

We had about 40 different cheeses, and about 45-50 guests, so I think your cheese/guest ratio sounds good!

We did cheese biscuits, baguettes (3 was plenty for our guys, so maybe 1 or 2?), carrot sticks, celery sticks, baby tomatoes, a little coleslaw, a chutney or two. A cheesy dip (soft herb cheese eg Aldi's own cut down with a bit of yogurt to mayo consistency), some crisps, maybe peanuts? We had loads left over, and very happy dogs eating the cheese rinds!

One thing that was v helpful - little labels in each cheese to say what it was. I did cardboard stuck to cocktail sticks - worked a treat! If you have any non cows-milk cheeses, v helpful to show this (standard Microsoft sheep and goat clip art). Some people have a love/hate relationship with goats cheese. I love it, my mum hates it!

One thing I can't help you with is ratio of wine to guest, as different country = different culture. But if people know it's a cheese and wine thing, there will be a bottle or three of red wine brought as gifts, I'm sure! Oh, bottled water, esp fizzy, was popular too.

 

Grapes! Must have grapes with a cheeseboard

 

@"M" Even though I've never been a wine lover...it is known for Wine to be best suited to eating cheese

 

£10 Should be enough:

Homemade Blackberry Wine and or Blackberry and Elderberry Wine at approx. 50p/bottle.

560g Seven Cheese selection boxes, redùced to 98p (were £7, then £3.50, then £1.75, now 98p each - the price we bought at today) in Tesco (£1.75/Kg).

 

@Jack Sparrow Don't forget to add a bowl of constipation tablets ...as it's a known fact cheese bines a person

 

@Scrungee I see you have my favourite in their Gouda

 

This extra mature Red Leicester is rather nice (shame they only had 4 packs left)

 

I think there is a way you could reduce costs and that would be to ask each guest to bring one bottle of wine and one cheese each. Bear in mind you are providing the venue, the tableware and glasses (ergo the washing up!) biscuits for cheese, the salads, the nibbles, any soft drinks, the grapes, the breads etc.
To avoid everyone turning up with a tub of cheese triangles you could task them, on their invite, with bringing a type of wine and a cheese from x
e.g. Joe ... a bottle of white wine and a French cheese; Betty, a bottle of Australian wine and a Dutch cheese; Bob a bottle of sparkling wine and a soft cheese so on and so forth. In my experience, people enjoy being "involved" and it adds to the fun. The last thing you want is to be out of energy, enthusiasm and money by the time the evening starts.

 

@Scrungee The cheese is a good price

 

Last Xmas there was a free (my favourite price) Edam promotion (just had to do an online review) where you could claim back up to £15 per single purchase, one per person bank account, we have 4 bank accounts so stuffed our fridge with whole Edams (got Tesco's cheese counter to go through them finding the ones as close to £15 as possible), got fed up with it by February as Mrs Scrungee doesn't like Edam.

Cheese & wine events can be very cheap, our daughter is member of a uni organisation that has one every year shortly after her return from Xmas hols, so we send her back with loads of homebrew and cheap cheeses.

 

@Scrungee Edams a lovely tasting cheese we've always got it in our fridge..that wasn't a bad price though mate ...oh I bet your daughter does love you my dad used to do home brew when he was a live but packed it up when he noticed it was going quicker than he could upload it

 

Cheese on toast and a brown ale, now that is worth looking for.

Oh and the cheese liberally scattered with sesame seeds, to add an exotic touch.

Who said I aint got no class.

 

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were going to be using the cheese that you already had.... Hence the comment of ratio of cheese to guests.

We were given lots of wine. Because of the Belgians love of champagne (and it was a special birthday) we got a number of bottles of champagne. However, they also drank a lot of it!
I think if you even say verbally "bring a bottle" you should be comfortably well supplied!

Oh yes, definitely need grapes as well!!

 

A 'must have' that we were told about by a French waiter the first time we came to France...... a cube of Cantal (almost identical to Cheddar) a grape and a small square of dark chocolate. You have to eat them in a certain order, though, and damned if I can remember which!