Wine Tasting Party I

This weekend we celebrated our inaugural Wine Tasting Party at the Lee residence in Birmingham.  If you follow this blog with any regularity (which is most likely I "no" since I maintain it on such an irregular basis!) then you might recall that Scottie and I take a lot of Wine Tasting trips.  While it all started with the Niagara-on-the-Lake trip back in 2008, most of our current stockpile of wine is from our various trips throughout the Michigan Wine Trails:

• 2009 - Old Mission Wine Trail
• 2010 - Leelanau Peninsula Wine Trail
• 2010 - Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail

The only wine trail in Michigan we haven't hit up is the one closest to home, the SE Pioneer Wine Trail; however, we opted for the much better SW Ontario Wine Trail (back in August) across the Detroit River from us.  Thus, since 2010 has been a successful year of wine tasting for us, we thought we would share the wealth with our friends in the area on a brisk Fall evening.  

I am not sure if we were more excited about the prospect of sharing the evening with a group of friends, about drinking some of our tasty wine collection, or preparing for a house party.  Regardless, while I went through a massive cleaning of the apartment (well, as massive as you can really clean this place), Scottie had a blast at Whole Foods selecting some some cheeses and at Hallmark finding some place cards to label the wine and cheeses.  

I whipped up some standard appetizers - Walking Taco Dip and Bruschetta - and Scottie prepared his peppadew peppers with feta cheese.  We also prepared an assortment of fresh fruits and crackers to compliment the cheeses.  Of course, there was also the obligatory dark chocolate kisses for the sweeter wines.

The evening started off slow with a few half glasses, some lengthy explanations of why we had so much wine, and of course, introductions of friends to friends.  At one point, we probably had about 15 people in our apartment, which for us, in Michigan, is a true measure of success.  As our guests departed, we also remembered to ice up some bottled water for their drive home.  Smart thinking Scottie!

I'm labeling this post "Wine Tasting Party I" with the intention that there will most definitely be a version 2.0 or II.  More picture from the event in my photo album.