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The "Dress it Up!" Downloadable Dinner Party is a great way to throw off the chill of winter, get dressed up and celebrate spring. The idea here is to get together with friends and share a wonderful mix of Sonoma County wines from Korbel, Kenwood, Valley of the Moon and Lake Sonoma wineries. To compliment these fabulous wines, Korbel's Executive Chef Phil McGauley has put together eight delicious appetizer recipes for your mixer. We’ve also included education on how to read a wine label and everything you’ll need to play our interactive “Label Hunt & Speed Concentration” game!

Below you'll discover a full suite of educational and entertaining download PDF files complete with recipes, hosting tips, and winemaker cheat sheets. Better yet, you can order your tour wines directly from Wine.com by following the links below.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER WINES FROM WINE.COM

THEME SPECIFIC HOSTING TIPS

THE STORIES OF KORBEL & HECK ESTATE

KORBEL'S SPRING APPETIZER RECIPES

WINEMAKER CHEAT SHEETS

HOW TO READ A WINE LABEL

LABEL HUNT & SPEED CONCENTRATION GAME

TIPS ON SERVING THE FOOD & ASSIGNING RECIPES

Dressing Up for Spring, Door Prizes, and Other Ideas
Bucking our own trend for the casual affair, Wine Brats celebrate spring 2003 with the Korbel & Heck Estates “Dress it Up!” Tour. In honor of Korbel and Lake Sonoma Winery’s- new label designs–along with new vintage releases from all four wineries–we suggest that you guests put their best fashion foot forward as we kiss winter good-bye! For quick access to everything you might need such as door prizes, fashion tips and music, we offer the following links:

http://fashion.about.com/library/showssp03/blspring03main.htm
http://www.fashion-planet.com
http://www.publishers-edge.com/03Spring_Fashion.html

Music
Background music should be ambient and playing when guests arrive. Wine Brats suggest Big Band music to liven up the party. Yes, a bit out of vogue, but what’s more uplifting than swing music on a spring day! To learn more about Big Band and swing, visit the following sites:

http://www.bigband-era.com
http://www.anyswinggoes.com
http://www.swing-music.com

“DRESS IT UP!” TOUR WINES
Now let's review the wines from the"Dress it Up!" Tour, sponsored by Korbel, Kenwood, Valley of the Moon and Lake Sonoma wineries. Wines can be ordered directly through wine.com (note that wines and shipping laws vary by state) to offer you virtually the same wines from the multi-city tour. You may also want to print the winemaker cheat sheets and take them to your local wine shop to order in advance. These wines reflect the great diversity of taste farmed from Sonoma County's many regions.

Korbel Champagne Cellar
Kenwood Vineyards
Valley Of The Moon Winery
Lake Sonoma Winery

BUY THE WINE

WINEMAKER CHEAT SHEETS

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Ordering Your Wine
Basically, there are 4 - 5 glasses of wine in every bottle, so we suggest you order 6 bottles of wine for every 4 - 8 people. Note that you don't have to finish every opened bottle of wine or polish off every glass. Below, we'll supply tips on dump buckets, responsible hospitality and how to store opened, unfinished wine.

As far as the cost of wine, you might want to make arrangements in advance with your guests that go beyond justassigning tasks for the evening. You may want to determine the overall cost of wine and appetizers in advance and divide evenly among your guests. If your guests are online, try coordinating your mixer with Yahoo Groups. And when it comes to collecting the bucks, it can be as simple as having them ante-up as they walk in the door. If so, we suggest you make it fun by creating a donation tin for Bacchus, the God of Wine. Be creative.

Storing Your Wine
Once you've ordered and received your wines, keep them in the wine.com insulated shipping box until the day of your mixer (unless you are blessed with a wine cellar). Once you've checked your order, just shove the box in the back of a cool closet. On the day of your dinner party, be sure to pull out your wines and place the white wines in the refrigerator approximately 2 hours before dinner. Red wine bottles should be cool to the touch, not warm. If you happen to forget, or are running late, chilling white wines in a bucket of ice and water will have them ready for sipping in 20 minutes.

Setting Up the Mixer
To facilitate interaction between guests and to keep traffic flowing, create multiple stations throughout your home or apartment. Set up four stations representing each winery: Korbel, Kenwood, Valley of the Moon and Lake Sonoma. Our Downloadable Dinner Party PDF files include the winemaker cheat sheets and the "story of the wineries" docs. Simply print them and place at corresponding wine stations.

Open all wines at once and gently replace their corks into the neck. Replacing the corks will guard against spills, while allowing you to re-cork any leftover wine at the end of the evening (more on this later). If you order more than two bottles of each wine, keep the extras in reserve and open appropriately or when requested by thirsty guests. Have one wineglass per guest plus 20% for back up.

When pouring wine during your mixer, make sure guests understand that they are "tasting" not "drinking" and should pace themselves as they move through the wines. We also recommend that you place a dump bucket at each wine station. These can be as classy as Champagne buckets or as tacky as empty coffee cans (we really like the large cans that peeled tomato come in—they tend to have a nice retro look). This way your guests can taste and dump any wines as they move through the line up. Again, keep tastes small until guests find what they like. When they find what they like, then pour a full glass to enjoy. Encourage comments. Above all, enjoy the fruit of the vine!

If you like interactive games, click below for full details on how to set up and play our Label Hunt & Speed Concentration game for your mixer!


LABEL HUNT & SPEED CONCENTRATION GAME

HEY, I HAVE 20 FRIENDS COMING OVER...THAT'S 30 GLASSES!
As we mentioned above, don't throw away your corks. If you have leftover wines at the end of the evening, you can re-cork the bottles and stick them in the fridge. Yes, and the red wines. They'll easily last 3 - 4 days. You might also divvy up the wines at the end of the evening and send them home with friends--as long as the guest is sober, the bottles are re-corked, and stored in a locked truck of a car.

Re-Corking the Leftovers
As we mentioned above, don't throw away your corks. If you have leftover wines at the end of the evening, re-cork the bottles and stick them in the fridge. Yes, and the red wines. They'll easily last 3 - 5 days. You might also divvy up the wines at the end of the evening and send them home with friends--just make sure the bottles are re-corked and, stored in the locked trunk of a car, and that the driver is sober.

TIPS ON SERVING THE FOOD & ASSIGNING RECIPES
Utilize the recipes created by Korbel's Executive Chef Phil McGauley to provide appetizers for the evening as well as take home recipes for guests. Again, if your guests are online, you may want to divvy up the menu using email or Yahoo Groups and assign the making of the appetizers to your friends and guests. On the night of your mixer, place apps throughout your entertaining area to keep traffic flowing and guests eating. Again, our Downloadable Dinner Party PDF files include these recipes.

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