For my birthday in a few weeks, we are doing a 4-5 course food & wine pairing. We are expecting about 12-14 people total.

How many bottles of wine do I need for each course? Is 2 enough?

I will have other wines for drinking but if I have to exceed 2 bottles per course may need to buy a couple more specific ones.

Much appreciated

2 bottles per course, IMHO, is too few. If it's a group of friends, I've had wine dinners where the consumption was darn near a bottle per person. That said, with 12-14 people, I wouldn't go lower than a case, which would equal 3+ bottles per course.

It's far, far better to have too much wine than too little. That way, too, you (as the host) can drink the left overs!

Agree with BRR for the most part. Anything under a bottle per person at an auspicious event like this is criminal. Two cases minimum!! Get cracking.

PH

If you are pairing a specific wine with each course than I think you are spot on. A standard bottle if I'm not mistaken is ~ 24 oz. That allows for a 4 oz pour per guest assuming 12 people. I think that's plenty for a 4-5 course meal. Jgreen did say there's more for drinking outside the meal.

For a meal, where you've got nice big stems, one bottle between 6-7 people is ridiculous. One gulp and it's gone. One bottle between 4-5 people is much more realistic, therefore 3 bottles per course.

I'd go to four if it's a bubbly with appetisers.

Two bottles should suffice if it's a sticky.

Dave,
I hear what you're saying, but with that math each guest will have drank a bottle each just during the meal. That seems a bit excessive to me based on the way I read the post. It sounds like this will be a gathering over the course of an evening, not just going out to dinner.
As I think about this more, it seems that certain courses may require more than two bottles and others less (like dessert). The point of my original post was I would approach it from the perspective of how much wine do you think you would drink for each course and then do the math.

quote:

Originally posted by snipes:
Dave,
I hear what you're saying, but with that math each guest will have drank a bottle each just during the meal.

Yeah, that sounds about right. You don't want to overdo it.

Obviously none of you have dined with the CRS mob.

14 people usually equals about thirty bottles.

If it is five courses, I'll assume two appetizers, a main course, a cheese course, and a dessert. That's the way I'd do it. With 12-14 people, I'd figure three bottles for each appetizer course, four for the main and cheese courses, and two for dessert. That's 16 bottles. If you have people driving, don't push more on them. A four to five hour dinner can handle that much wine. If nobody's driving, it's always fun to select a few extras from the cellar with your guests having some input.

Thanks to all- let me be a bit more specific.

When folks arrive we wil have some foods available for snacking (cheeses, olives etc). For that folks will likely have cocktails and I will have a couple other bottles available (bubbly, red, white etc).

For the actual meal -which will be informal- not a true sit down- we will have 2 appetizers, 2 main (a pasta and a protein) and then some sort of a dessert.

I want specific wines for the food pairings but throughout will have other bottles available for social drinking.

My speciifc question is around the pairing. I want everyone to have the same wines so need to make sure I have enough of each. If it is 2 I am set but if 3, I have to pick up a couple extra.

So assuming folks are drinking other wines/cocktails outside if the tasting, how much?

Thanks again

I'm a little confused about the situation. So everyone gets 1 pour and when they are done their pour they drink something else for that course? If so 2 each should be plenty.

No- in the above posts, people thought I was asking how many bottles for the entire evening- was just stating that there wil be plenty of beverages/wine to drink outside of the food/wine pairing.

My question about how many bottles per course is specifc to the food and wine pairing. In the pairing only, I want to serve the same wine to everyone for each course, so I am trying to determine whether 2 bottles of each is sufficent or I need 3. The wine served as the course will not be the only drinks being served.

Ill restate my question:
If you were providing a food and wine pairing dinner for 12-14 people, how many bottles of wine would you have for each course?

For most courses, three.
One glass (small glass if 14 attend) is not enough to do justice to a food/wine pairing. That is especially true with red wines.
If there is one meat course that dominates, you may even need four.

quote:

Originally posted by jgreen:
Ill restate my question:
If you were providing a food and wine pairing dinner for 12-14 people, how many bottles of wine would you have for each course?

LOL!

I'm sorry but I'm still confused! I guess I'm just not understanding properly what you mean by food and wine pairing with each course. If I am reading this right, at the beginning of each course, you will pop a bottle of wine and pair it to that particular course. For each guest to receive a "decent" pour, you'll need 2 bottles. That will pretty much finish off your 2 bottles. Now during that course, what happens if a guest finishes off "their pour"? Do you want to refill it with the same wine or do they resort to drinking the "social wine"? If the former, then 2, if the latter then it depends how much your guests drink! (But as a general rule, I would have 4 of each, for the latter case).

Replace former with latter and vice versa.

2 bottles each for the appys, noodles and dessert is probably ok, but you should have 3-4 for the meat course (depending on the amount that you are plating). Of course, having 3 bottles available for the other courses gives your guests a choice on whether to enjoy a little extra with their plate if they find the match especially enjoyable or move on to the social wines.

Nobody said you have to polish off every bottle that you open.

I'd say one glass per person per course when I have my wine offlines so total 14 people times five courses would be 70 glasses of wine which would be, I'd go with 20 bottles.

My general rule is 2 per course for 8 people. Therefore 3 per for 12. I've also found that you'll need more red than white because of the larger glasses. If you want to be absolutly safe, go with 4.
Also, if your not planning on it, you should decant the reds an hour or more before they are served.

Its also best to keep each varietal/course the same, last big meal I did we had 2 different Pinots, one was quite a bit better than the other which ins't a good thing.

Cheers and good luck. Post your menu when you get a chance.