Wine for wedding...

skye

Hi all,

Can anyone advise me on where to buy wine for my wedding - approx 70-80 guests. How much do you reccomend I buy? What split between white and red? Anyone got any good web-sites etc or should I just go to local offie / supermarket? Also any recommendations on brands would be great.

Thanks in advance...

andy1249

First things first , where is the reception and do they allow corkage , a lot of places dont these days , you need to be sure of that.

For our wedding , we allowed a half bottle per person for the meal , depending on whats being served , ( do you have a choice ! ) then allow for white with fish or chicken and red with beef , I would say about a 60 40 split in favour of the red.

For 80 guests you are looking at about 40-50 bottles. When buying this amount you should be able to get a deal , Tescos is actually quite respectable in this regard , also the carry out chain do a nice selection of wines.

Make sure you taste the wine bofore you buy , it should be no problem with the amount you are getting. If you dont drink wine yourself bring someone who does.

I would not worry about " brands " , you really need to taste , you can get some wines that were great last year ( like rosemount ) and are totally different this year , so its taste all the way !!

Litcagral

An independent wine merchant may allow a few boxes on a "sale or return" basis. You could say that you are willing to purchase 4 boxes and 2 more if you can return them.

skye

Thanks for that andy1249 - just sussing things out at the moment...The wedding is up North and I am trying to figure out if it will be cheaper to buy the wine here and take it up - the corkage is £5stg per bottle ( but intending to beat this down as low as possible!! ). The hotel house wines are £8.95 per bottle.... We are just having the usual Turkey meal, so white there I guess...
What do you reckon is my best option?

andy1249

The 5 sterling is pretty heavy but it could still be well worthwhile to buy bulk ,
Your having turkey so a lot of people may insist on white wine but in my experience red is more popular , so I would still make it a 60 -40 split in favour of the red , say about 28 30 bottles of red and the rest white ,

Try a few wine merchants and see what kind of deals they will give you on 40 -50 bottles. Keep in mind the price of the corkage , in effect each bottle is already costing you 7 Euros or so.

Try the house wines in you hotel and see if its acceptable to you , if not then shop around , you should be able to find a reasonable deal. It wouldn't be unusual to get a very nice wine for around the 4 -5 euro mark , ( buying in bulk ) , with the 7 euro per bottle that would make 12 euro per bottle , which only works out a little cheaper but you get the wine you want and are not stuck with the house red.

skye

Great stuff - thanks alot andy!!