How much wine?

[WashAsDelicates]

I'm hosting a dinner for 7 people aged between 16 and 60. One of the adults will contentedly make one glass last the whole evening. At the other extreme is the one who will drink every drink you give them. Both are generous hosts.

How many bottles of wine should I buy?

A tiny glass though, not the average wine drinkers glass at all.

You're definitely not stingy op just by the fact that you are even trying to get it right shows that 😊
As others have said, when pouring own wine rather than pub measures, a bottle is about 3 large glasses. When chatting and having a leisurely meal with friends, many people would easily do at least 3 or 4 glasses even if not usually big drinkers.
So get at least 8 bottles to be safe. Personally I'd get 3 red 5 white as I find white goes down faster than red! Worst case scenario is you end up with a left over bottle which you can use on another occasion.

They’ll have brought some with them, if they’re big drinkers and know the OP is not. And they can all have a glass of fizz pre-dinner (or I’d offer a G&T etc, already in the cupboard). And the 16-year-old and the only-one-glass person skews the maths too. So I would be absolutely fine with buying 3 red 3 white and 2 fizz. And I promise I’m not from a family background of abstemious drinkers.

It’s not you are a stingy person but three small glasses,of wine over the course of an evening is stingy,

the issue is, when people arrive, unless you’re going to bums rush them ti the table then you will sit and have a drink or two and chat first. If you give them a small glass you’d expect to top it up. They may choose wine for that drink, you can’t say no really . So that’s two small glasses before dinner.

then dinner itself , it’s not great to control how much they have, like it’s not great to portion up and control the food consumption. So if you’re going to keeo folks glasses topped up, and give them a choice Ie red, white, rose or sparkling, you need to cater for enough for most folks to pick any one choice.

you can just say sorry I’ve only got white, if so then 10 would probably do it.

however the point remains, three small glasses of anything over a course of an evening is quite stingy.

What? 😂 big drinkers? Seriously.

This is the most practical. We are wine drinkers though and always have wine in and any 'party' wine won't go to waste.

You should Exocet at least 2/3 bottles brought by guests (possibly more), so a conservative eating would be 2 fizz, 3 white and 3 red. This is assuming you won't easily drink left overs.

Personally I always work on 2 bottles per person (I usually ask if they prefer red or white so I don't over buy on one and not the other)
Then I add a couple of bottles of fizz and a litre bottle of gin into the mix!
Never ran out this way and everyone has a good night (and a headache in the morning 😆)

Wine doesn't go off that quickly! 🤣🍾

I always plan for a bottle a head so that's 7... but you could go 3 red, 3 white and 3 fizz if you want to cover all bases.
If you have left over all fine and yes people will probably bring wine too

I would get eight because you have still adequately catered but realistically people ought to know to bring a bottle, and that way you will have more. If i went to dinner i wouldnt expect the host to provide all the wine too

At least 4 bottles

That sounds right to me. If your guests are huge drinkers they should bring enough with them. Two bottles each is way too much.

I'd probably drink two bottles myself 🙈 but I'd definitely bring my own 🥂

I'm puzzled by the notion of a household that buys wine per each meal!
Surely you have a virtual if not actual wine cellar, in which case it is largely irelevant how many bottles are required.
The consumption level is may be dependent on the guests mode of travel.

As to the etiquette re donated wine, if something expensive or special, obviously, the temptation is to keep for personal consumption, which may be in line with the donors expectation.

I have been given absolute crap wine in the past, which I took delight in opening and pouring for the donor "as you like it"

I would go for a bottle for each person, and then if you run out you won’t have been stingy in any way. I would expect to get at least one bottle given to you.

I also wouldn’t assume people will drink white with fish - lots of people just prefer red. Maybe a nice Pinot Noir though as that’s not heavy at all.

Surely you have a virtual if not actual wine cellar, in which case it is largely irelevant how many bottles are required

i do t understand this, what’s a virtual wine cellar?

"I'm puzzled by the notion of a household that buys wine per each meal!
Surely you have a virtual if not actual wine cellar, in which case it is largely irrelevant how many bottles are required."
I would definitely buy wine ready for a meal! Sometimes there might be a bottle or two in our store cupboard, but definitely not more than that, and it's quite likely 'party' wine that someone has brought and which will go on to the next do (ie I'd buy nicer for dinner party guests). We do usually have beer / cider, which is what I'd offer a casual visitor.

But I move in the sort of circles where people would definitely turn up with a bottle, and expect it to be opened (& I'd do the same myself)

Have you actually measured the capacity of your wine glasses? Mine are not big to look at (for reference) and they have a 240ml capacity. Very very few wine glasses are 175ml unless you live in a pub, and once people start topping up each others’ glasses they aren’t going to stick to 1/3 full or whatever is required to maintain the 175ml serving.

I’d always rather have too much, than not enough! It can always be used another time. My lovely, and otherwise very generous, IL’s are quite conservative with their food and drink portions. Once my FIL made a single bottle of Prosecco go round 10 people! 🤣

With fish for the main course you can safely buy more white than red. For the seven people you have described, including yourselves, I would buy three bottles of fizz, six of white and three of a light red. This would be in the expectation that several bottles will not be opened, but you never know which ones. In my circles it’s about a bottle per person over a long evening.

12 bottles of wine.

A bottle of Brandy, (towards which you can direct the happy drinker if they start visibly eroding the supply of wine).

A soft option for the person doesn’t really want to drink the wine.

Is this a maths question 🤣🤣🤣

3 large glasses of wine is a bottle of wine.

id go for 1 bottle per person and 3 extra just in case. ( 6 white, 2 rose and 2 red)

Go for light reds with fish, eg Beaujolais. Fleurie is particularly nice.