The past two years, some neighborhood friends and we have gotten together to do a wine crawl. We decided to do it again this year. The way it works is that each hosting couple selects a theme, buys wines to fit the theme, and prepares food to go with the wine. You can read about our past wine crawls here and here. This year’s wine crawl took place last week-end, and we decided to serve wines with ghostly Halloweenish (yes, that’s a word) names.
I started off by going to my local liquor store and talking to one of the employees. I said I wanted to find some decent wines with a Halloween themed label. She had a great time going around the store finding bottles of wine that fit my request. I was surprised there were so many. These three wines were the most tasty ones. I also added a Boo-berry and Spider Apple wine for fun.
Each year we have been ordering glasses with the dates or making some with etching. We all were getting a nice collection, and we agreed that we didn’t need/want anymore. This year we ordered them without the date and then painted the bottoms with chalk paint so we could write our names on them. We plan to put them away and bring them out next year.
I used leftover decoupage paper from our Trick or Tea to be the background for my food cards. I love how easy and tasty Haystacks and Spiders are so I decided to make them for the crawl.
Along with haystacks and spiders, I made deviled eggs and spooky stew, which was basically a slow cooker recipe for chicken and dumplings with a scary name.
I found these napkins and pumpkin when my mom was here, and I thought they would be perfect for the table along with the spider web table cloth.
The morning of the wine crawl a friend came over to do my house tour photos. (Yes, they are coming very, very soon.) I didn’t have anything decorated for Halloween, so the moment he left I grabbed my Halloween bin and added some decorations outside and some fall decorations around the house. I forgot about the black garland we have used on our mantel in the past, so I thought it would be perfect for the table. Also, I just realized it had lights so it added a fun effect to the Halloween theme.
Overall it was a great night with a great time at all the houses.
Cheers!
Linking to Between Naps on the Porch for Tabletop Thursday.
Wine crawl – what a great idea, and I love the theme.
I love your wine crawl and also read about the first two years… I would love to start the crawl in our neighborhood. A couple of questions… Who pays for the wine glasses??? Where did you order them???? love the aprons too! Do you always have the same 5 couples host the crawl each year????? You invite appox. 15 more neighbors???? Do they contribute to the wine/ foods.?????
Thanks!
Janette, here. Jordan is away from her computer for a long week-end so I will try to answer your questions. The couples who are hosting purchase the wine glasses. They order them on line, and divide the price up evenly between the hosts. Probably you can google wine glasses in bulk and find some. They try to have four or five houses, and usually it is the same group serving as hosts. The hosts purchase the wine and make the food to complement what they are serving. If you would want to charge a small fee for each person to attend and put that money towards the glasses, food, and wine, I think that would be okay. The bottom line is that if this is the first time for you and your friends to put on a wine crawl, you can do it the way you are the most comfortable. Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.
Thanks so much for all the great info….. I appreciate you talking the time to answer my questions!
This looks awesome! I especially love the linens – fun idea for a Halloween shin-dig.
Such creative choices in wines.
I think I’ll buy the same ones for our “Wine-on-Wednesday” gathering this week.