Bila Haut White |

Sarah Sofia Productions

A wine tasting party is a great way to get together with friends while enjoying and learning more about wine! It’s always a festive way to celebrate a Bride-To-Be for her bridal shower. Check out more details of this bridal shower wine tasting here.

What better way to host a wine tasting than to have an expert guide you through the wine selection and tasting. Sam Ryburn Jr. was our sommelier aka wine expert for the night! Since this wine tasting was held in the summer, we choose patio wines.

We had 8 wines that were all reasonably priced and perfect for summer. Cremat Rose’, which is a dry sparking wine from France, outside the Champagne district and LaMarca Prosecco. a semi sweet sparkling wine with notes of peach and citrus were our two sparkling wines. Rose wines go great with salads and light summer foods.

Sarah Sofia Productions

Our next two wines were Bila Haut white and Bila Haut Rose’. A favorite of mine, which is also a good selection for weddings, is A to Z Pinot Noir from California, was compared to Belle Glos Pinot Noir from Oregon. North Star Merlot and Vin de Pays d’Oc Chardonnay rounded out our tasting.

The menu was tapas style with light appetizers including caprese skewers, applewood smoked bacon wrapped dates, sweet figs with walnuts and honey, watermelon and mint skewers, an artesian cheese plate, prosciutto, several different salami options, Palmetto cheese bites, grilled apple chicken sausage bites, and spanakopita.

The most fun for me besides drinking the wine, was the use of the colors from the food, to décor, to the flowers! I was so excited to finally use these vibrate colored lantern string of lights from Oh Joy’s collection! I also used some of her napkins from her spring collection.

I have been using this set of costal appetizer plates all spring and summer, and the wine tasting was another good reason to bring them out. Probably my favorite HomeGoods find of the season. I absolutely love the way the wine tasting party looked at night with all the lights on the deck!

Just as the event was set up it down poured and was brought inside. On to Plan B! However, the rain eventually stopped and cooled down the humid Carolina air, and guests were able to enjoy the festive deck under the lights.