We bought 15 bottles of wine- 8 white, 7 red- from Costco, BevMo and Vons. Mostly $9-12 dollar bottles, but threw in a few $3-5 ringers. We picked out all local wines, because it's important to us to both support local businesses and celebrate the wonderful region that we live in. We had so many wonderful friends that were able to come from out of town, and had a fabulous time!! People took their jobs very seriously!
I spent all day Thursday and Friday cooking up yummy appetizers. I was instructed to lay low after getting my wisdom tooth out so what better way than watching Grey's on iTunes and cooking? We also bagged all the wines in paper bags, and then had color-coded voting sheets to make it easy for people to keep track of the wines that they had tasted.
The Voting Sheet. I was feeling sassy when I typed it. Turned out to be a great idea, because after 15 wines.... and everyone not knowing you were supposed to drink a small taste, not glass, of each wine.... let's just say, we had some fun!
We rented wine glasses and Jacob had the marvelous idea of making wine tags so people could keep track of their glass. I grabbed some leftover scrapbooking paper, extra baker's twine, a tag punch and some heart stickers and went to town! I don't need an excuse to be crafty!
Any birthday of mine obviously requires cupcakes, preferably of either the chocolate or funfetti variety. Even better when you have a cupcake stand that allows for both! I had some leftover chocolate cream filling from a failed attempt at making chocolate cream puffs. So I piped it into the chocolate cupcakes! A yummy surprise!
Any party is only fun when you have all your bestest friends to celebrate with you. Thank you all for coming to visit!
Cutie couple Trent and Marsha with bestest Nicolle
Brian and Sarah!
Thanks to Laura and Jonathan for coming from Santa Barbara!
Best Man Justin and gorgeous Dale. Dale was such an amazing helper and friend this weekend! I couldn't have done it without her!While everyone took their jobs as the official "Wedding Wine Judges", certain people took their jobs very seriously... Including taking notes, having intense discussions regarding the "drinkability" of the wine, doing pre-ratings, and saving all of their votes until the end and going back to do final ratings after tasting all of the options!
Tyler, Garrett and Matt... the most serious of the group.
Jeremy and Jacob
Kelley and Simon- thanks for the beautiful flowers and wine!
Tyler, Garrett and Matt... the most serious of the group.
Jeremy and Jacob
Kelley and Simon- thanks for the beautiful flowers and wine!Soon it was time for cupcakes and a Happy Birthday song! I was so scared that Jacob was going to drop the cupcake tower...
Unfortunately, I was on vicodin for the wisdom tooth business, so I couldn't drink. But everyone else had a fabulous time! We even moved on to champagne after they had burned through the wine!
Tyler, Matt and Garrett with the loser wines. .71 average for the yellow bottle!
Towards the end of the night, we added up all the votes and tallied the results. Initially, we picked only 2 wines (1 red, 1 white)....
...but after some crazy lobbying by some people and a serious discussion about the merits of two different syrahs (Firestone and Robert Hall) with our local wine expert, Marsha, we went with 4 wines (2 of each!).
The Whole Shebang.
Meet the winners!
Edna Valley Chardonnay (San Luis Obispo, CA) , Gainey Vineyards Reisling (Santa Ynez, CA), Castoro Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (Paso Robles, CA), and Firestone Winery Syrah (Buelleton, CA).
Check out the links on the left! They are definitely some wonderful wineries to visit and some GREAT wines! This was a great break from school and thinking about the stress of weddings. The fun is STARTING! Thanks everyone for the best birthday weekend (some people even slumber partied with us and stuck around for the Super Bowl the next day!) and for helping us out on this most important decision!
Unfortunately, I was on vicodin for the wisdom tooth business, so I couldn't drink. But everyone else had a fabulous time! We even moved on to champagne after they had burned through the wine!
Tyler, Matt and Garrett with the loser wines. .71 average for the yellow bottle!
Towards the end of the night, we added up all the votes and tallied the results. Initially, we picked only 2 wines (1 red, 1 white)....
...but after some crazy lobbying by some people and a serious discussion about the merits of two different syrahs (Firestone and Robert Hall) with our local wine expert, Marsha, we went with 4 wines (2 of each!).
The Whole Shebang.Meet the winners!
Edna Valley Chardonnay (San Luis Obispo, CA) , Gainey Vineyards Reisling (Santa Ynez, CA), Castoro Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (Paso Robles, CA), and Firestone Winery Syrah (Buelleton, CA). Check out the links on the left! They are definitely some wonderful wineries to visit and some GREAT wines! This was a great break from school and thinking about the stress of weddings. The fun is STARTING! Thanks everyone for the best birthday weekend (some people even slumber partied with us and stuck around for the Super Bowl the next day!) and for helping us out on this most important decision!
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