Our 4th Annual Wine Crawl

Happy Monday!  Mom and I are excited because she just returned home from a three-week trip to Europe, and I will be flying to Kentucky tomorrow to spend the week with her and find out all about it.  (I’m sure she will be sharing photos with you.)  We have lots of fun activities planned including the UK vs. Georgia football game.  (Go dawgs!)  Well, it is that time of year again.  Our neighborhood had its annual wine crawl, and Yankee and I were hosts once again.  This year we decided to have some fun and dress up in Halloween costumes since it took place just a few days before the big dress-up holiday.    Yankee and I decided to pair up and go as characters from Orange is the New Black.  While it was fun, I do not think I can pull off being a blonde.

Usually each host and hostess dress up in outfits that represent the country their wines are from.  So, the costumes added a fun element.  A group of our friends dressed up as the cast from “Gilligan’s Island,” and there was a variety of other  costumes.

 

Just as a refresher, here is how a wine craw works:  Three or four homes serve as hosts for the evening.  The hosts select a type of wine they want to serve.  They can be wines from a certain country or wines from different parts of the USA.  Then they decorate their tables to go along with their wines and serve foods that either pair well with the wines or are eaten in the region or country the wine is representing.  It’s a nice added touch if the hosts also dress accordingly. Oh, and since all the houses are in the neighborhood, there is not driving involved.  This year we decided to do wines from South Africa.  When we went there for our big vacation this past spring,  we spent a day touring a variety of wineries, and we found some we enjoyed.  Unfortunately, the selections of wine from South Africa is not that great at our local liquor store, so we did the best we could.

 

 

As a tablecloth, I put a large piece of burlap over the table.  Do Not Feed the Animals was a sign we saw when we were in areas where the animals freely roamed, and so I thought it would be cute as part of the tablescape.

 

We loved seeing so many animals in South Africa so I decided to just place some around on the table.  It was very simple but fun.

 

 

The elephant and mask were purchases we made on our trip.  I grabbed them along with some other wooden animals from our bookshelves and used them as part of the decor.

 

 

For the wine crawls I like to have a little height to highlight the wines we will be tasting.  I usually just grab some books and put some fabric on top of them to have instant height.  It’s easy to vary the heights by just using more books.

 

 

I love the baby and mamma giraffes.  We were so impressed that they made it back with us in one piece.

 

 

Since there were multiple stops on the crawl this year it was important to hydrate.  So, one of my favorite and easiest party tricks was wrapping water bottles with a fun scrap book paper.  It doesn’t take long at all, and then we were able create our own watering hole.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any shots of the table with the food on it because everyone arrived while I was putting it out.

 

Thanks for stopping by and reading about our wine crawl.  If you would like to see what we did last year, you can check it out here.  And by the way, Mom and I will get back to writing our Seasons’ Saturday Selections this week, so be sure to plan a stop by on Saturday.

 

Cheers!

 

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