The Auswine Forum

Hi Everyone!

My fiancée and I are busy planning our wedding reception (in lovely South Mission Beach, NQ) and would really appreciate ‘some help from the wise’ with developing a short list of wines to serve at our reception.

The FOOD served will be from a short list of really nice dishes, ranging from fish to beef, chicken, duck and several vegetarian dishes. Our own (Aussie) WINE tastes are not very sophisticated – and we live in the US (South Beach Miami, though I’m an Aussie, from Magnetic Is, NQ:-)! – so our Aussie wine choices here are fairly limited, as is our budget:-)! We like *dry* wines, mostly drink red, e.g., we enjoy Rosemount Shiraz or a good Cab, though we drink the occasional Pinot Grigio (usually Italian) and like dry champagne and Prosecco.

Can anyone help us with suggestions, on the still side, for any of: a good dry red, a dry white and dry champagne and Prosecco. And as if that is not a big enough ‘ask’, I guess we should also offer a (still) sweeter red and sweeter white, so any thoughts or pointers there?

To give some sense of price, our goal is provide good wines that will not let down the great food dishes or embarrass us in front of our friends that will travel from Interstate, as well as the US and Italy, to attend our special day reception; but also not break our budget:-)!

TIA!

/david (and lisa)

PS. BTW, the hotel has proposed 3 different beverage packages, ranging from ‘basic’ to ‘superior’, which seem quite pricey to us, at A$65, A$70 and A$90/head, for a 5-hour function, especially as neither we nor our families or friends are great drinkers at all.
And as we look at the wines listed in each of the packages, they are from one or two small vineyards, that, at least to us living afar these days, we don’t know, though they seem lesser known ones to us. (We could post a list here of the vineyards and wines if anyone is interested. Maybe these wines are good and worth the price after all....)

Be good if you could post the list of wineries and wines. You may find that the hotel may not allow you to BYO, especially if they have already suggested these packages. It's pretty unusual to be able to supply your own wine at a wedding but if that is the case, I'm sure we can come up with some good suggestions here.

Can you give an idea of how much per bottle you want to spend. I would suggest appropriate brackets might be under $10, $10 - $15, $15 - $20, $20 - $30, $30 - $50, Over $50. Makes it a bit easier to suggest what might be appropriate.

Yeah post the lists. I was in South Beach, FL a few years ago and was stunned at the prices I could get big brands like Penfolds for. It seemed like they were waging an aggressive campaign to win market share. Whether this is still the case I don't know.

Edit: Ah, I see the function is in Australia

My advice is leave it to the women to worry about and enjoy your last months of freedom

Thanx for your replies!

Here are the 3 bev packages offered by the hotel:

1. BASIC package:
nv stony peak sparkling
06 stony peak chardonnay
05 stony peak shiraz cabernet
local beer (vb, xxxx gold, xxxx bitter and cascade light)
non-alcoholic soft drinks & water

$60/head for 5-hour function

2. BETTER package:
nv taltarni brut
08 dog ridge sauvignon blanc
06 dog ridge cabernet merlot or shiraz
local beer ( vb, xxxx gold, xxxx bitter, cascade light and james boags premium)
non-alcoholic soft drinks & water

$70/head for 5 hours

3. SUPERIOR package:
-choose 1 of:
nv taltarni ‘t series’ brut - victoria
nv segura viudas cava 'aria’ - spain
nv preece brut - victoria
nv tulloch wines brut– nsw

-choose 2 white and 2 red:
nv tulloch wines – hunter valley, nsw (chardonnay, semillon, verdelho, cabernet)
nv taltarni ‘t series’ – victoria (sauvignon blanc/semillon, shiraz, rose)
flinders bay wines – margaret river, wa (chardonnay, verdelho, shiraz, merlot)
leaping lizard – margaret river, wa (sauvignon balnc, cabernet/merlot, shiraz)

local australian beers (vb, xxxx gold, xxxx bitter, cascade light, james boags premium, tooheys extra dry and crown lager)

$90/head for 5hours.
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And yes Chris, it was amazing, some of the prices of Aussie reds here. At big discount stores (like Costco) we could (and still can) get Rosemount for US$6 each or less - far less than I can find it for back in QLD!

And the hotel HAS said it will allow us to suggest alternative bev arrangements: WE can suggest the list and give them the # of bottles of each that we want, and then THEY buy and serve them, at a cost per bottle to us, which no doubt will be a good mark-up over their cost.

So, I guess if we say an av price of $15-20, the hotel will end up charging us $40/bottle <sigh>! But this is a tough question: when we select wines here, we always start with the low price wines and see how they taste to our palate and if they don't taste good, then we go up to next price range, e.g., we have tried some Aussie reds/whites here that I haven't liked at all, e.g., I think Alice White was one, and some Jacob's Creek and Penfolds, NOT good at all, though we found Rosemount (at US$5-6 per bottle!) and have always found it a good drop, and MUCH better than Yellow Tail, which you saw a lot of here a while back, and very cheap, but whose taste we found to be quite inferior to Rosemount.

Thanx for trying to answer a reallly tough question!

/david (and Lisa)

I faced this dilemma a little over 18 months ago myself - (Gotta go back to planning). We looked at our guest list and worked out who would know plonk from premium and who would care. It came down that the only people who would notice or care about the quality of wines served at the reception would be on the wedding party table. Most of the rest were either beer drinkers or people who think $10 is an expensive bottle - so we went for the basic package, but arranged for a few special bottles for the bridal table. (Ended up with a Jeroboam of Wirra Wirra Church Block (05) and a bottle of D'Arenberg Peppermint Paddock Sparkling Chambourcin) which was more than enough for everyone involved.

I'd go for package two, and just hammer the Taltarni sparkling wine.

Package 2 - the Taltani is certainly drinkable and the Dog Ridge Shiraz is respectable and easy drinking.

From someone who knows far less than the above two, package 2 by a long way for me. Congrats and have fun!

Thanx all for sharing your wine wisdom with us!

So, we should choose the #2 'better' package:-)!
We were concerned that while the wines might be from a known vinyard, they might be of a lesser caliber, sold to the hotel perhaps at a significant volume-discount, so that the vinyard could off-load their low-end stuff and the hotel increase their profits while still showing a known vinyard label.

Now another question if we may...

With an expected *40* guests, and NONE of us big drinkers at all, I wonder if it may be cheaper for us to order by the *bottle* instead of paying an hourly rate per head for each guest (something which I had never heard of before).

Part of the answer depends of course on how much the hotel will charge per bottle (and we are getting that info now) and the other is what sort of consumption we should plan for per head over the 5 hours - again remembering that NONE of us drink much at all.

Format will be drinks and canapes/cheese platter after our ceremony for our guests while our photos are taken, then 'meet and greet' for 30-45 mins and then we all sit down for 4-course dinner and music and dancing and open mic. So, some drinks before - up to 3/4 hours then we all sit-down for platted dinner reception and dancing and fun, etc., for 5 hours.

Anyone want to hazard a guess, over the 6+ hours per person, on what a light to average drinker would consume, during conversation+snacks+sit down dinner and dancing, so we can aggregate that and come to some total bottle counts, to see which pricing option may be cheaper.

TIA!

/david (and lisa)

Hard to guage without knowing the folks. But a "light drinker" would by definition only have a glass or two (maybe three or four over 6 hours) so about half a bottle a head should do for these folks. Over that time period I would allow for nearer a bottle for regular drinkers and 1.5 for dedicated consumers.

Some won't drink at all, so balance it out somewhere about three quarters a bottle a head???

30 bottles? But count bubbles separately as everyone will want half a glass for toasts - half a dozen bottles I would think.

Just my thoughts - please don't blame me if you run out!

Cheers

Michael

Michael, thanx for your wisdom! We are hoping to get the beverage package signed up by Monday and then move on to the next tasks on our wedding planning list.

Best to all!

/david (and lisa)