Bringing wine to a dinner party etiquette

[WellLarDeDar]

I was brought up being told that if you go to someone's house for dinner you take something nice like wine or flowers etc because it's good manners. If I took wine to someone else's house I would expect them to either store it and have it when they felt like it, or pop it open and we drink it together.

DH and I were trying to make friends in a new area and invited a couple over for dinner - I met the husband through work, we got along really well so I invited them both over. The wife came in and handed me a bottle of wine and I was like oh thank you would you like a glass (yes obviously), went to the kitchen and poured four glasses of it and handed them out and great. Throughout dinner we were opening more bottles (provided by us) and then afterwards we settled in the lounge and the wife went 'oh I'd like some of our wine now.' and made a comment about our wine being sweet. Admittedly I do love Riesling and it is sweet but I had this sinking feeling... because we'd already drunk it together and she obviously didnt realize and I suddenly felt like a naughty child that had eaten all of someone else's Halloween candy and had that dreaded stomach pit feeling when you've just been caught out and have to own up. It was super awkward and I said 'i think that's all gone, we drank it all' and she went '...oh' and the look on her face...I could be wrong but we got the impression that she brought the wine for her and my colleague to drink...but not for me and DH and we shouldn't have drunk it :S she spent the rest of the evening furiously texting and not talking and I felt so embarrassed

Was I really rude to have poured DH and I a glass? I get at a big group bbq or house party people sometimes bring their own stuff but I didnt think that would be the case for a small four person dinner party. If you're over for dinner and hand me some wine I'm gona say let's all have a glass :S Crap. I'm 30 and feel like I have no idea how to adult!

She was very rude but probably her way of asking for some different wine. Reisling is an unusual choice to serve without checking first. I couldn’t drink it and to be honest if I was served that with at a dinner party it would spoil the meal, I couldn’t drink Reisling.
Good friends I have will often offer you a choice of wine or check before opening a bottle that you are happy drinking what they are about to open.
In future get in a medium/dry bottle as well and check with people what they would prefer before serving Reisling all night.

It’s pretty rude taking wine when you go to someone’s house for supper, particularly the first time. It’s OK to bring a particular wine you perhaps brought back from a small vineyard in Devon for the hosts to try or might have some significance.

It’s really rather rude to expect a gift to be drunk at the time. You’re unlikely to know what is being served and the suggestion is your host cannot provide adequate wine of the right quality.

There are people who are rude. A host simply needs to accept this and smile through it all. A bottle of cheap wine should be received with good grace and simply put aside for the next bottle stall donation.

If she liked it that much, she should've brought two bottles. Silly b* I guess she won't be around again. You sgouyld get a return invite, take the wine you like and let her know it's for sharing, F** life isn't meant to be thuis difficult,.

It’s pretty rude taking wine when you go to someone’s house for supper

Why?!

YANBU but having moved from one part of the country to another I do see differences in etiquette that might explain this.

Where we used to live it was the norm to take a good bottle of wine to dinner and it may or may not get drunk. It’s a gift for the host. Not a BYO.

Where we live now people tend to BYO for dinners at other people’s houses and then if you don’t drink your own alcohol the host gives it back to you at the end of the night. I still find it weird.

Do people these days really have such formal dinner parties - restaurant stylee with matching wine to each course etc? Surely you just have people round, lots of food, lots of booze and get pleasantly pissed? or is that just me?

I am at all the posters stressing about the Riesling. I don't think she was that rude asking about her bottle but it sounds like you'd already all drunk enough at that point to have been able to laugh about her not having remembered that you'd all already drunk it.

The texting afterwards though was rude but maybe because she realised she'd embarrassed you and was herself embarrassed in turn?

Rude may be too strong a word, but to bring wine and expect it to be drunk rather suggests you think your host lacks generosity or won’t provide enough of the right wine.
They might have spent several evenings working out the pairings and your bottle of Blue Nun isn’t going to compliment the venison Wellington. It throws their plans out completely.

If you have specific need such as a Kosher wine, then that needs mentioning ahead. If you’re vegetarian you should trust your host to provide vegetarian wine - but if it’s someone you don’t know well, you might offer to bring a vegetarian wine beforehand.

A family barbecue for a dozen in the garden is somewhat different because everyone knows each other well enough to agre who is bringing what.

Do people these days really have such formal dinner parties - restaurant stylee with matching wine to each course etc?

Yes we have formal dinners as a standard way of entertaining people we don’t know terribly well, as do most of our neighbours. We went to one last night. It was nice to be out and meeting people again.

The host is a wine enthusiast and had chosen his pairings very carefully. Although after a magnum of Laurent Perrier between five of us, we probably would have been happy with Riesling.

I think for work entertaining or with less familiar people it helps to have a situation where the rules are known and understood. Formality sometimes overcomes awkwardness and ‘getting it wrong’.

She was rude but I have to say I'd be devastated to have brought a nice Sauvignon but spend the night drinking Reisling too. If entertaining you should probably have another option as it's a very marmite choice.

Did her DH not noticed she sat on her phone and say something?

Do people these days really have such formal dinner parties - restaurant stylee with matching wine to each course etc?

It's not formal to match wine to courses is it?

Even when you have a barbecue, which is pretty casual, you think about the choice of drinks

Our friends brought the red wine we took to them last week back to our house last night when they visited.

Obviously I shall now cut them.

constantdont cut them ! Between you you have entered a remarkable space time vortext! Very few manage this ever in their whole life.
The two of you just need to pass that bottle back and forth - no popping out to lick something up because you’ve only got cheap or expensive in etc.
Don’t say a word. Act normally. You know your next move.

Rude ruder still to text !

Very rude. You bring a bottle for the host as a gift, if they decide to open the bottle great but if not you drink what is on offer.

@Howshouldibehave

It’s pretty rude taking wine when you go to someone’s house for supper

Why?!

In certain circles it can be seen as judging the quality of the host’s wine as lacking.

Dh and I have never taken it like that and have never been given a better quality of wine than we provide and just accepted with good grace. Don’t drink much these days but some specimens were really vile.

Lesson learned. Dont invite them again. Do you really want to be friends with such petty people?

Reminds me of when my big sis used to visit and drink us out of house and home. My husband went to wine shop and asked the girl for the worst bottle of white in the place. She explained that the worst bottle was not the cheapest, but it was vile! He duly made the purchase. You should have seen sister’s face when she tore into it!!

(Its rude turning up to someone's house with wine) REALLY and that means you turn up with what, flowers! So that means poor host has cooked and will clean so won't mind fu**ing about cutting and arranging your blooms. You never turn up at a party or dinner do, without wine never not ever. Don't care what type cheap, expensive but it's a gift and upto host to either share or keep.

We went to a house warming party only on from 4-6pm, about 10 of us there, we brought 4 bottles of champagne the hosts served us cheap prosecco for 2 hours and kept the champagne for themselves!

Obviously YANBU... but you do say yourself that Riesling is not for everyone. I would try and offer people a choice of what we had available and/or show/mention the bottle as you crack it open (and mention it specifically if it is the one they brought). But that still doesn’t excuse her twattery!

@ConstantCrayfish

Our friends brought the red wine we took to them last week back to our house last night when they visited.

Obviously I shall now cut them.

You are joking?!

This actually reminds me of my mum ‘regifting’ a Christmas pressie to her sister about 55 years ago and the damn thing has circulated within the family every Christmas ever since! It even has its own folder full of witty ditties that now accompany it, which the chosen recipient is obliged to add to.

bellie710
That's also rude. One bottle to keep yes but all 4 greedy and rude

@CrankyFrankie yes of COURSE I am joking. We took it to them because they said they had no red and didn’t know what we liked. Then they brought it back to us because they almost never drink red.

Where I live, it seems the norm to be incredibly generous when invited round for a meal - multiple drinks (including soft if someone visiting will be drinking lots of it or bringing kids), flowers, plus food gift of some sort. People appear in your house weighed down with stuff. Some of it gets eaten/drunk, some doesn’t. No one seems offended at any point from what I’ve seen.

YANBU, she was rude, and acted weird!

SHE should be embarrassed, not you @WellLarDeDar