Wine Catering – Saves the Day for Dinner Entertaining at Home
by Yats Leisure Published by Clark Philippines on October 15, 2009Nine out of ten beautifully organized formal dinners are ruined by the touch of poor wine selection and service.
“So far so good” murmured his wife.
The last time she said that it was almost involuntary and his fingers were two buttons away from removing her blouse. But this time it was different – there was a bit of romance in it. This was a pat on the Leo’s shoulder for the imminent success of a socially critical dinner party held in one of Manila’s favorite restaurants. To him, it was of course all work. To the rich – and let’s not forget attractive – wife, it was a generous helping of glamour and glory. But he was not complaining. Just as an NYPD officer would say in a life TV interview after taking a bullet in the (lower) cheek during a drug bust, “I’m just doing my job”.
Everyone at that table agreed that most formal dinners were a plunder of a poorly conserved national treasure called time. But his well-rounded 49-year-old demeanor blended seamlessly with his understated good looks to exude a certain attractiveness that charmed the table of 10 from salad to soup.
Karina is the 37-year-old gorgeous other half – very desirable but very taken. She was secretly congratulating herself too, for the choice of this restaurant to hold this dinner, and the choice of this husband for everything else. Clearly this was what marriage’s about. Strangely enough, he loved it and he loved her.
After 10 dinners a month for the last 6 months in succession, this sort of things can seem exceptionally insignificant to the host. After all, most formal dinners tend to be well sculpted effusion of extravagant mediocrity. It must be destiny then, that someone should antithesize this socially thriving couple. As the quails were being served on rustic chinaware, the 24-year-old aspiring dancer/waiter performed a stunning feat that would have been considered death-defying back in a more civilized era a couple of centuries ago. She poured the wrong wine into the wrong glass. Or was it the wrong wine into the right glass, or the right wine into the wrong glass…? Heck, the wine in the bottle was red (Pinot Noir) and the wine in the glass was red (Merlot) – Pwede Na! Not since the warring medieval times did Burgundy face Bordeaux with so much contempt, now a mere echo of inspiring battle cry “Today, we fight!”
Sliding doors open again, rewind – take two.
You have a very important dinner for 10. Gentlemen will be in jackets and ties, ladies in cocktail dresses. The good news is you have a license to kill P 60,000. The bad news is you are the host. News could get worse in a hurry if old Murphy (Murphy’s Law) came uninvited. Murphy always works overtime to spice up your act with a few effervescent disasters. Then there’d be plenty of publicity of the most effective kind – word of mouth.
There are actually two ways to skin this cat.
Option one – you can do what most people would do without thinking and that is to throw the dinner at an upscale restaurant. In terms of money matters, P 3,000/head, times 10 totals P 30,000 for food and drinks. Add another P 25,000 for 7 bottles of forgettable wine. But you can’t make it too ordinary or else your guests might just notice them with dubious interest. Hmm let’s see – that’s P 55,000. How about tips? OK, let’s call it an even 60 grand. Push away from the table and call it a night before restless guests ask for a desert wine to end the evening. That’d be another even 10 grand, thank you very much.
Clear Accumulator. Now let’s look at option two. Entertain your guests with a stylish dinner at home, using professional help. Again, let’s start by counting the beans.
Cost for Dinner Entertaining at Home
Shopping money for food P 10,000
Wine Catering and Personal Chef P 35,000
————
Bill for the dinner at home P 45,000
If saving P 15,000 doesn’t do much for you, here is a kicker – you get to show off that Million Dollar home of yours. The much neglected dining room would appreciate a little life and romance too. But does it really work? Oh yes, it does and here’s how, piece by piece.
Personal Chef
A troop of culinary personnel works swiftly behind the scene. Only one chef and his commissary land on your driveway on D-day. They are armed with mise-en-place from their production kitchen. Four hours before curtains, curious boxes march into your kitchen through the back door. This might be a good time for you to take that very long bath. There isn’t much fun to watch the preparatory work of a major illusion, even if it is David Copperfield’s? And yes, you will need to surrender command of your regular kitchen staff temporarily to the visiting culinary commanding officer. Who knows, the kitchen staff may learn a few things from this joint exercise.
Shopping
The major problem with entertaining out (as opposed to dining in) is with that quintessential anathema of culinary document called “menu”. Most menus don’t change for many months, even years if you go to the average steak house. They are uninspiring. Even when “special menus” are devised for special dinners, it is usually a feeble remix of tired old tunes made up ingredients hibernating in the freezer for months. How can your dinner excite your guests then?
When you dine in, your personal chef goes to market and grabs the best stuff around. There is no reason for him to do otherwise. He doesn’t have to answer to food cost. But there is a shopping budget of course. After all, this is not Heaven, you know. What a refreshing change from his pressure-cooker life in the kitchen? For this dinner, he has P 10,000 in his pocket to indulge. Without a doubt, he can’t help but stretch the peso to the limit – an occupational hazard. This menu is what he has in mind for an affair of this stature.
5-course Home Entertaining Menu
Starter
Thai garlic roasted Mediterranean baby eggplant and zucchini
Server on toasted foccacia with pimiento dressing and Japanese scallops
Soup
Palawan Lobster Bisque in Iranian saffron
Salad
Thai Duck Breast with julienne of Zambales green mango
Served with hanpicked Davao pomelo segments
In light finger chili vinaigrette
Entrée
Sage Butter Roasted French Jumbo Quail
With Lardoons in apple smoked bacon with Japanese kernel corn
Over a bed of Tiger prawn risotto
And a symphony of sautéed wild forest mushrooms and parsnip shavings
Desert
Timbale of Chocolate
With berries and mint cream
This is the menu for this particular home-entertaining dinner prepared by Chef Philip Golding of the Yats International Wine Club Grill Room.
The great chefs will tell you that 80% of their magic comes from 20% of the ingredients they use. Cut them loose with a respectable amount of shopping money and an obscene amount of freedom, and your magical evening is 80% successful already even before sundown.
Wine Catering – working with professionals
The wine component is the perennial stumbling block in formal dinners. So many things are dying to go wrong. So many people are ever ready to talk about those things. And talk about it they surely will, for so many, many weeks.
We are not just talking about bringing bottles to the table and pouring them into glasses. We are talking about all aspects of wine etiquette. This means wine selection, wine pairing against food, understanding serving temperatures, appropriate decanters, wine-specific stemware and wine-specific serving standards – the works. Nobody can expect the regular household staff know a great deal about wine service. This is why wine catering is indispensable. But how does wine catering work?
The wine caterer proposes a wine selection for your approval. In this example, roughly 52 liters of wine should be sufficient, averaging a little over half a bottle per person – a civilized quantity. Only the most ignorant of wine caterers would even spread its budget evenly over all 7 bottles. Instead he would use a few inexpensive but decent bottles to start the evening reserving good money in the budget for “featured wines”. The featured wines showcase the featured dishes – typically the entrees – to create a conversation piece. Yes, it’s just show biz.
Wine catering is not a new concept nor is it a new product in this society. But still there are many who haven’t explored this option. For more information about wine catering and wine for that matter, visit www.yilp.com or email the editor. It doesn’t cost anything to avoid the next major embarrassment.
Now look at what your guests will drink for four hours this evening and talk about for the next four weeks:
Price Total
Wine Per bottle Price
2 bottles of Bergerac 1999 P 800 P 1,600
2 bottles of Petite Chablis 2001 P 800 P 1,600
- featured wine -
2 bottles of 1975 Ch. Croque-Michotte, P 4,500 P 9,000
– Grand Cru St. Emilion
1 bottle of 1983 Ch. Du Mayne, P 7,000 P 7,000
– Barsac, Sauternes
Total shopping bill for wine P19,200
Wine glasses, like silverware, china and candles are as much a part of the ambience as paintings and other décor in the dining room. It certainly enhances the experience but it can just as easily froth up colorful sarcasms if you don’t pay attention to these details. Your guests have four long hours to notice these things.
Good wine caterers never fail to arrive with special wineglasses for the featured wine. For the first two wines, they will use whatever wine glasses they find in your home. By the time you get to the 30-year-old Chateau Croque-Michotte from St. Emilion, the elegant Red Bordeaux glasses will obliterate your guests’ impression of the preceding goblets. These little Riedel playthings cost P 4,000 a piece so not all of us keep boxes of them at home. And of course we should also have the sexy-cute Sauternes Wine Glasses to drink the equally irresistible 1983 vintage Chateau Du Mayne from Barsac, both of which are shown in the picture. The shapes of the glasses bring out the aroma and bouquet of the specific wine. They are also a feast for sore eyes.
Notice the unmistakable design of the Riedel Sauternes Wine Glass and the trademark dark golden hue of a matured sweet desert wine.
Talking about details, here is another fun part about working with professionals. The good wine caterer will always provide you with a synopsis of the featured wines. This is a one-minute short-cut to connoisseurship. The 2 pages between the covers are discreetly for the eyes of the host only, of course. It is nothing verbose of course but there is a sufficient dosage of knowledge to allow the guests to develop some expectations.
Wine selection has to go perfectly with each course of the dinner. In view of that, the wine caterer and the personal chef should come from the same source. Unless you are steeped in the dark art of arbitration, it’s probably not a good idea to get them from different companies.
When it comes to matters as fickle as reputation and stature, it is difficult to understand why anyone would even consider leaving things in the hands of strangers and amateurs. Taking chances is for stocks, currencies and wild nights in town, not for matters of wine and food. Wine catering gives the host something that is precious in entertaining – peace of mind.
* * * * *
In the director’s cut, the scene plays out quite differently. Dancing waiter is replaced by a charming but very professional 27-year-old wine server. The wine glasses containing leftover wine from previous courses were removed and quietly replaced by the Riedel Red Bordeaux Glasses for the ‘75 Croque-Michotte. While this nearly 30-year-old was chilling in a decanter to 13C – the requisite serving temperature for a merlot-based matured red Bordeaux – the bottle was presented to each guest. At the same time Leo shared his connoisseur’s remarks on the featured wine with the table. As you might recall, those comments were handed to him a day before by the wine caterer. Admiring eyes gathered on Leo as he combined facts with poetry to produce magic.
By the time the evening arrived at the 1983 Chateau du Mayne and cute Sauternes wine glasses graced the table, the ever-difficult-to-please Karina began to feel irrevocably assured. Yes, this was quite special despite the inevitable damage of a few pesos and the hurt from a few unnecessary indiscretions. What really mattered to Karina now was that life was indeed special, and if that’s not enough, that his was hers.
Sliding doors closed and passengers moved on with the train…
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