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I love movie award season. Looking at dresses worth more than my house. Watching celebrities attempt to talk over a full orchestra when their allotted speech time is up. Having an excuse to drink a little wine and talk about movies that I haven’t actually seen. (Not including the animated feature nominees. I’ve totally seen every last one of those.)
I have a few simple ideas for your next wine night. Everything is styled around the colors red, gold and black with a flavor theme of sweet and salty. I started by rolling out the red carpet. Or in this case, rolling out inexpensive red wrapping paper to use as a table runner. I also scattered a few gold stars and used table accessories that were in the color scheme.
And of course you can’t forget the most important part of any wine night: the wine! I chose a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon from The Dreaming Tree. The Dreaming Tree Wines are a collaboration between musician Dave Matthews and winemaker Sean McKenzie. The brand launched in 2011 with a collection of high-quality but approachable California wines. In addition to the Chardonnay and Cab, they create a Central Coast “Everyday” white blend, North Coast “Crush” red blend, California Pinot Noir and a Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc. The Dreaming Tree is also sustainable from vine to table with recycled labels, natural corks and a lighter bottle weight.
As I’ve mentioned so many times before, a party requires cupcakes. Scientific fact. To theme-up my store-bought treats, I added gold wrappers and gold star cupcake flags. To make the flags I used star stickers attached to toothpicks. It couldn’t be easier!
To bring in a little sweet and salty treat, I filled a gold bucket with barkTHINS® snacking chocolate. Their dark chocolate and pretzel flavor is my favorite!
No movie is complete without popcorn, so of course a movie awards party needs popcorn, too. In this case I popped up a little kettle corn to stick with the sweet and salty theme.
I have a legitimate obsession with sweet potatoes, so it’s probably no surprise that Food Should Taste Good’s sweet potato tortilla chips are one of my favorite things. I hacked my sweet potato fry frosting to create a dip especially for the chips. I served the chips in a gigantic wine glass and the dip in a not-quite-so-gigantic one, because what’s life without whimsy?
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 block cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- In a bowl, mix powdered sugar, cream cheese, milk and vanilla.
- Stir until smooth.
- Slowly add cinnamon and cayenne until desired taste is reached.
Be careful adding the cayenne. I think there’s no such thing as too much, but apparently the rest of the world isn’t always on board with that opinion.
So that everyone can easily keep up with their wine glass, I created some fun movie award-themed wine charms.
And even though they’re usually pretty fun, we all know award shows can sometimes drag. To keep the party entertained, I made awards show bingo cards. Print them out and play along with the show!
Be sure to check out your local retailer for wine tasting demos!