Wine Club Love!

So a few months ago, one of my lovely coworkers invited me to be her guest at Wine Club. Wine Club was started by a friend of hers (and now mine!) and a few girls that work on the hill. It started out small, but in the year that it's been in existence, it has grown tremendously and expanded to outside friends as well. The rule of Wine Club is, you don't talk about Wine Club. Just kidding! I couldn't resist a Fight Club reference...Actually, the rule of wine club is that everyone has to bring a bottle of wine, we all take turns hosting, and we create fun themes for each month's gathering. We've done Christmas parties where we've all brought toys to donate for Toys-for-Tots, a 'Wines you are Thankful For' (obv. a Thanksgiving theme), and 'Wines with a View' (the label on the bottle you bring has to have a view). One of my favorites was the 'Magnum Bottle' theme- which was actually a play on a Super Bowl theme (football players are huge, so we brought huge bottles to go along with the theme).

This month I was the lucky host. Since it was February, of course I went with a Valentine theme- 'Wine Club in Love' - everyone had to bring a bottle they loved. I went all out with the food- antipasta plate, spinach artichoke dip (B helped me out with that one, I'll have to share the recipe!), homemade pizza, and an apple tart (a Giada recipe, so good!). Everything must have been good, because there was no food left over! We also went through probably 10 bottles of wine, but whose counting? All in all it was a great night- I love throwing parties, and I love wine club. It's so great to have a large group of girls that can get together and just enjoy each others company. We don't all know each other well, so it's a great chance to make new friends. I know it's really expanded my circle of friends. Everyone should have some sort of social group- not just a group of best friends (though everyone should have that too!), but a larger group with a common interest- book club, food club, wine club, whatever! - that they can just enjoy hanging out and getting to know new people. I'm so glad that I get to be a part of it, and very thankful for all the friends I have made!

-J

The Birthday/Engagement Celebration

In planning our proposal weekend, B thought of everything, including how excited I would be to celebrate with all of our friends. That’s why his proposal timing was perfect- it was the weekend before my 25th birthday party weekend. A little background before I go into the details…every few weeks, my friends from college and I get together in one of our current homes. A few months ago, we decided to celebrate my birthday and Cee’s birthday (the day after mine) in Arlington. B knew all about the birthday plans of course, and planned the proposal so that I would get to see all my friends the next weekend to celebrate our engagement along with Cee and my birthdays. 

So last weekend, all the girls and Cee’s boyfriend came down for a visit. We had a busy weekend planned- an all day wine tour in Virginia, plus a birthday party that evening. Friday night everyone arrived in town and we spent the evening prepping the food and catching up. We got up early Saturday morning and kicked off the day with mimosas before heading out to Ballston, where our wine tour bus picked us up. We took the Boomerang bus, which was fairly cheap and, though not the most comfortable, a lot of fun. We visited two wineries in Loudon County, the Bluemont Vineyard and Veramar. They were both beautiful, but the view from Bluemont was breathtaking. It was set into the side of a hill, with an altitude 951 feet you could see the entire valley below. It was a gorgeous day, though roasting at 95 degrees! We had a lot of fun at both wineries doing tastings and enjoying a picnic we packed. I highly recommend taking a picnic (if the winery allows it), buying a bottle of wine or two and sitting outside to enjoy the scenery. 

After the wine tour, we came home and got ready for the party, hosted generously by our friend E who lives in the same building (talk about convenient!). We made all the food and drinks ourselves of course, prepping everything the night before since we knew we’d be back late from the wine tour. It definitely made life easier to have everything made ahead of time and just finish off that evening. Our menu was simple, we stuck with two specialty cocktails named after the birthday girls- the JM was a cucumber mint martini, and the Cee was a pomegranate martini. For appetizers, we served ham and cheese puff pastry sandwiches (a Barefoot Contessa recipe), roasted red peppers and mozzarella, spinach and artichoke dip, marinated olives, spicy mini meatballs, and cupcakes made by one of the girls. B did a wonderful job creating the spicy meatballs. We couldn’t find any recipes that we wanted to try, so he started from scratch and made something really yummy (though a little too spicy for some of our guests!). B will post more about them later. 

Overall the birthday/engagement celebration weekend was a blast, and it was so wonderful to get to see so many of my closest friends at once and share our engagement story in person! The girls all seem really excited to help me plan the wedding, which made me really happy. I love all the creativity that goes into planning a party, and our wedding will by far be the biggest and most important party we’ll ever throw. Having all of our friends be excited and want to help will make planning our wedding fun, and surely will help balance out the stress that I’m sure we will experience as well. I can’t wait!

Attention All Wine Lovers!

I wanted to let you all know about the upcoming 'Toast of The Town' event hosted by Wine Enthusiast Magazine in Washington, DC on Friday, June 11th at the National Building Museum. 

'Toast of The Town' is America's premier wine and restaurant tasting event, featuring more than 500 wines and spirits from around the world and culinary creations from more than 30 top-rated DC-area restaurants.   

The event looks like a lot of fun, unfortunately B and I can’t attend (B has a birthday surprise planned for me that night, more about that later!).  Details are below, and don’t forget to use the code to get discounted tickets!

WHAT:

Wine Enthusiast Magazine's 'Toast of The Town'

 

Wine Enthusiast hosts a series of 'Toast of The Town' events across the country each year, however 2010 marks the premiere of 'Toast of The Town' in Washington, DC. 

WHEN:

Friday, June 11, 2010

5:00-7:00pm VIP Tasting

7:00-10:00pm Grand Tasting

WHERE:

The National Building Museum

401 F St NW

Washington, DC

TICKETS:

DC Food Love readers can get a discount of $10 off Grand tickets and $20 off VIP tickets.  You just need to purchase tickets online by going to www.wineenthusiast.com/toast and entering in the following promotional code during the check-out process: DCFOOD

Cheers!