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Wine and Cheese Party

Say "Wine Party" and the first you think of is "and cheese". (Well, maybe not the first, but probably only a millisecond after you thought "free booze!") We've all heard the adage "Age doesn't count - unless you're wine or cheese" and THEY just keep getting better and better with age. Hmmm…A Wine and Cheese Party…Now there's a thought. What a great way to celebrate adult birthdays, retirement, anniversaries, milestone events, or any day - just for the fun of it!

Want to impress your family and friends with your worldly knowledge and sophistication? Here's a handy list to help guide you on your merry way to your next Wine and Cheese Party!

Invitations:

Find invitations designed for Wine and Cheese parties or order the great-looking invitations decorated with wine bottle and glasses.

Décor:

Welcome your guests with a great-looking sign, written in the variety of languages that reflects the origin of the cheeses and wines you're serving, and decorate the border in the flags of the countries. Or, just pick one country, say France, and continue this theme throughout the décor and evening, serving French bread, wines, and cheeses. Vive La France! Need help with the sign? Party411 can create custom-designed signs - shaped like wine bottles or decorated with flags, wine & cheese, grapes, or anything your little heart desires!

Set up your room to look like a French café.  Artsy posters of quaint city streets and fine art by French artists like Toulouse L'Trec, Monet, and a host of others, can decorate the walls. Hanging dried or artificial vines and grape leaves along the walls, doors, windows, placed on buffet tables, and scattered around the room add a touch of authenticity. You can find these, or similar vines, at craft and florist shops. Use several grape streamers or cutouts hanging them along mantles, tables, and walls. They make a bold statement and add color to the room. Create a French flag to hang at the entrance and you've got the café look nailed!

Use long white cloths to cover the tables topped with well-worn silverware - mix and match for an authentic look. For either cloth or paper napkins, instead of folding them, roll them corner-to-corner and tie them using natural colored raffia ribbon or curling ribbon in Burgundy, Teal, and Royal.

Centerpieces:

Centerpieces add so much to the décor and unifying your theme. Try any one of these ideas for a smashing look and lots of fun:

• Place large glass wine carafes, with your house wine or a French flag label attached, in the center of your table. Emerald Green, Sparkling Burgundy, and Sapphire Blue balloons or a Mylar Champagne Bottle balloon spiraling up attached to ribbons in beautiful gem-like colors of Burgundy, Teal, and Royal add to the festivities. Sans balloons, you can fill the carafes with wine and scatter a variety of French rolls around the carafe. A beautiful centerpiece - and you get to eat and drink it, too!
• Fill a tall basket, old white pottery crock, or metal container with loaves of French bread and add some dried wheat stalks for a Country French look.
• Tie Quartz Purple balloons into bunches of grapes and use these for centerpieces or for the buffet area.
• Old wooden bowls filled with fresh fruit - apples, peaches, pears, plums, and of course grapes. Mmmm! Fruit adds color to the tables and complements both the cheese and the wine!
• Several wine bottles of different colors, shapes, and sizes clustered in the center of the table would look great. For a more festive look, you can add Emerald Green, Sparkling Burgundy, and Sapphire Blue balloons or get Mylar champagne bottle balloons.
• If you like the look of the wine bottle cluster, but balloons don't float your boat, stick candles in them, dim the lights, and use them to add a warm, intimate glow to the room.
• There's a great cow piñata that would look great in the center of any table! Really - without the cow, we'd have no cheese! With balloons or without, it's so charming! Use several for all your tables or just one for the buffet table with the cheese array.

Menu:

What to serve? Wine and cheese, of course! Select the cheeses you like best (all French or mix) and set them out, paired with the wine that best complements them. Need help? See the listing of Cheese and the Wines that Complement Them. Setting up little cards that identify the cheeses and wines is a great help. You can decorate these little cards with stickers you make or buy.

In addition to the great selection of wines and cheeses, you'll want to have beautiful baskets filled with French bread, breadsticks, croissants, and rolls as well as an offering of luscious fresh fruit. Place cut up fruit in large, decorative pottery serving bowls.

What's a Wine and Cheese Party without dessert? You had me a "wine" but the dessert thing caught my eye. Set out an array of French pastries, petit fours, sorbets, chocolate mousse, and fresh fruit, served, of course, with the perfect dessert wine, and you'll have your guests drooling! Add white or silver doilies to the tops of your plates and even the plainest-looking dessert will look fabulous!

Special blend French roast coffee served in little demitasse cups adds the perfect topper for a perfect evening.

Party Favors:

Send guests home with splits of champagne, labeled "Wine & Cheese Party from the Vineyards of John and Jane Doe, Year 2008". The memories of your party will live on forever!

As zhey say en francais…Bon Appetit!
The Party Girl

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