Buying too much wine (or alcohol in general) is usually the reason why you end up spending more money than you wanted to for your party. Most of us don’t mind providing booze for our guests to have a good time. After all, that was the point of having the party, right?
But, why spend more money than you have to? If you properly estimate how much you’ll need, which is usually way less than most people think, and limit the number of choices you provide, you can dramatically reduce the wine budget for your next soiree without sacrificing on the fun!
1. How to Estimate What You Really Need
In general, you can get 4 to 5 glasses out of one bottle of wine. So to figure out how much you need, just consider how many glasses of wine you anticipate each of your guests drinking and divide the total number of glasses for all guests by 4 or 5 (depending on how big you want each pour to be). The result will be the total number of bottles you need.
Don’t forgot that if you’re also serving beer or spirits/cocktails, then wine consumption per person is likely to be less. Usually, people may have a glass or two of wine with dinner and enjoy other alcoholic beverages before or after. Depends on how much your crowd drinks. Some people only stick with wine throughout, some only beer, and others mix it up. You know your guests. But it’s not uncommon for the amount of wine you need to go down by half when other kinds of booze are being served.
Insider Tip: Most hosts tend to buy way too much sparkling wine for toasts at a wedding or some other celebration. The reason is most guests don’t like to drink a lot of bubbly. They just like to have a little bit in their glass for the toast and then, they’ll maybe take a sip or drink just a little. There’s no need to fill up a whole glass. If someone wants more, they can always have the server provide more and usually, the number of people who want a full glass of bubbly is very small. So the trick is to estimate 1 or 2 ounces per person and ensure that your servers pour the right size. In a champagne flute, this will seem like a nice amount and you’ll be able to get 20 - 10 pours out of one bottle of bubbly! This means buy less and end up with less leftover.
2. Limit the Choices
Another good way to save money on wine for a party is to offer less choices. Instead of having a bunch of different wines to please everyone’s palates, just offer one or two “crowdpleasers”. A “crowdpleaser” refers to a kind of wine that appeals to a broad audience. The easiest way to simplify your selection is to just offer one white wine choice and one red wine choice. Then use the method above to estimate how many bottles to buy so you don’t over spend.
