Wine etiquette: serve wine people bring to your house - yes or no?

[OMGitsnotgood]

I’ve just commented on a thread I started asking for wine recommendations. Rather than asking the question on there, thought I’d start a new thread with a more specific title
I recall a discussion on this with a group of friends a while back and there were mixed, but fairly strong views.
I have no strong feelings about this either way, just interested in your thoughts:
If oeople come for a meal at your home and bring wine, do you always serve or at least offer it, or do you serve what you have bought yourself? (let’s assume that the wine guests have brought goes with the food you are serving).
Some of the people discussing it felt it rude to serve the wine brought, as it looks like you haven’t provided enough yourself. Plus it’s awkward if it’s not nice. Others feel offended if the wine they take isn’t offered as they often spend more on wine to take somewhere than they would at home. As said, makes no difference to me either way. Sometimes we don’t use the wine brought if we have matched wine to the food, which is what happened at the meal at someone else’s recently. Didn’t bother me at all, we were kept well watered! But if people want wine before or after the meal I’ll offer what they’ve brought or alternatives that we have available.
Appreciate it’s a first world problem, asking purely out of interest.

I generally don't take wine for a dinner party- flowers, chocs but not wine. Really that's to avoid any suggestion to the host that they won't be providing good wine. If guests bring a bottle I tend to put this to one side and serve my own. I do put out chocs that guests bring, so am inconsistent, I guess.
The exception would be a very informal, kitchen or family supper where I might both bring a bottle and open gifted wine.
I wouldn't be offended if others did differently!

I serve what people bring, working on the assumption they will have chosen something they like, whereas I'm not fussy in the slightest, and am as happy to drink an expensive wine or a £3.99 bottle.

Whenever we have friends round we always drink what we provide and what our guests bring. It is very much the done thing amongst our friends.

We don't have formal dinner parties just friends over for a meal.

I always assumed wine was a gift, same as I might take take flowers, chocs etc that I don't expect to be shared out but kept by the host- to use when they liked. As a host, I keep the bottle and serve what I had planned.
When 'my' bottle was opened at a dinner party type thing, I assumed they'd run out and 'needed' to use the bottle I bought along. I'd like the know the correct etiquette too, because I've never offered anyone their own wine before, but maybe I should be? 😬

Was going to say exactly the same 😂

All the wine gets drunk.

Then people go home.

I take two bottles. One as a gift and one for drinking.
And I always ask when people bring a bottle to mine.

Prefer my own wine opened, as most people serve crap wine. Can’t stand supermarket crap. I would always open guests so I can get rid of the rubbish they bring and assume they like it

DH is a bit of a wine enthusiast and buys all of our wine from supermarkets. He just doesn't buy the nasty stuff.

Etiquette-wise I don't think there are any rules these days unless it is a terribly formal dinner party with multiple courses.

We only ever have close friends round and eat at close friends houses. They all know that DH will want to drink the wine he brings and our friends always bring wine they want to drink. Fortunately they also like decent wine and we never get anything undrinkable.

I also never "carefully match wine with food" as one of my friends only drinks red wine and DH can't drink with food (he has a couple of glasses before he eats).

Thank you. Responses are mainly in line with my thinking - ie it depends on lots of variables. The thing that struck me about the conversation which led to this thread was the opposite but equally strong views: some were adamant that it was rude to open wine brought, others that it was rude not to. People we have round are good enough friends to say what they want. If an expensive bottle was brought as a gift, they would make that clear and generally don't care which wine they drink as long as there's plenty! Not something I'd lose sleep over but was just interested in what others thought. Thank you

If it was decent and better than what I had in the house I would 100 per cent serve first, so we could all enjoy together. I think I have prob been ever so slightly irked when bringing a nice bottle to a friends house, only for them to pull out some Blossom Hill or similar.

We will usually serve it. For example, some friends brought a bottle of Cloudy Bay Te Koko at the weekend and we wanted to enjoy a glass with them. If we’re serving a decent but £15-20 bottle, it seems a bit mean to save the nicer one for us.

Totally agree!

This has happened to us. Took over a decent white and red, only to be served something that the host happily announced her dad got in bulk from the Calais Wine Superstore for £1.50. It was disgusting.

It depends. If the wine is in tune with the food I prepared, and is at perfect temperature (sometimes I get a bottle of champagne too warm to be drank right away), I will definitely serve it, unless my guests tell me to keep it for later. If the bottle of wine has nothing to do with the food being served, rather than drinking a wine which will not reflect its full potential because it doesn't pair well with the food, I politely thank my guests and explain them I will keep their wine for another diner with the proper food to go with.

I have a friend who just doesn't like white wine, so we drink the wine we like rather than what goes with the food. We usually have a glass or two before we eat so pairing it with food is less of an issue.

Our meals with firends are just that - meals with friends, not formal dinner parties, and it is usual for guests to bring what they expect to drink rather than as a gift unless it is a birthday present.

Lol, I give the wine I've been given and is sh!t, so no.

I'd use what I'd planned to use, but I wouldn't give it a second thought if someone hosting me did or didn't use the wine I'd brought. I might open the gift wine if we got onto subsequent bottles after dinner.

It depends a bit on the friends. We have a couple of friends who are real foodies and wine snobs (frankly) so I tend to buy something fairly expensive if we go round theirs and expect they'd bring something nice with them for dinner at ours. They will pair the wine with food and it's generally lovely. We also tend to let them know what's being cooked ....so they'll bring something that might work and vice versa.

It usually gets opened. Sometimes we'll say - keep that for yourself as a treat.

Anyway other friends who rock up with whatever is on special at Tescos that week we'll probably open it at some point in the evening and the wines we are serving will not be quite as well chosen to go with the food!

The ettiquette is not to serve your guests' gifts. But if they don't know that's what's correct they might find you rude.. However, the days of having non-friends like the Boss and his wife around to dinner are long gone and the people you invite are usually close friends so you could just talk directly about it.

The worst look is not serving what's been brought if you then bring out a bottle of 3.99 special that's like engine oil. Don't do that

I agree with you, with drinking a glass or two before eating 😉 We usually start with bubbles with our friends, so that's often what they will bring or what we will bring to our friends. If the bottle is not cold enough, we will serve one of ours until their bottle is ready to be served. You don't need to have fancy dinners to have wines that pair with the food. I do enjoy pizza or a good burger with a cabernet or a chianti rather than with a glass of white wine. I prefer white wines with seafood. My friends usually ask me what I will cook, and bring a wine they like that will go with the food. I do the same.

As we and our friends tend to drink what people bring I would never insult a host by bringing a bottle of white wine that hadn't been chilled.

We once had some friends who we would eat regularly with and they used to bring awful wine. For white wine it was easy to keep it in the fridge and refill in the kitchen so I would refill their glasses with their wine and refill ours with our wine 😁

Ask what they would like.

There is no way that a bottle of wine brought by friends coming for dinner wouldn’t be drunk - we steam through the stuff!