Refreshing Wine Cocktail for Summer Parties

If you are planning a summer wine party, you need to find great recipes for wine cocktails. I have found you a very delicious and refreshing one. It's called an Ice Wine Martini. And comes to us from Food and Wine.com.

First, you probably want to know what ice wine is. It's simply a very sweet dessert wine. It's made by freezing the grapes while still on the vine. Then the frozen grapes are crushed to make the liquid that will then be fermented. By freezing the grapes first, the sweetness is highly concentrated. Ice wine is definitely an extremely sweet wine which can hold up against other liquors.

To make an ice wine martini, you need green grapes - about 10 per serving - 2 ounces of both ice wine and vodka. Puree the green grapes in a blender, then add in the wine and vodka. Strain this mixture through a tea strainer.

Next you want to shake the strained mixture with ice, then pour into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with either whole or half grapes on a cocktail toothpick. You have a delicious and refreshing wine cocktail to serve your guests.

By the way, this can be made in larger batches for your summer party. You can also make the grape puree without the wine or vodka ahead of time. Strain it first, before storing in the fridge.

Have a Dessert Wine Tasting Party

Getting ready for summer you can chose a warm evening to have a dessert wine-tasting party. These will be held from after-dinner into the evening, as long as you and your guests want. The party could start at 8 o'clock and continue until midnight, or something similar.

Dessert wines are typically sweet and served chilled. A bottle will usually serve about 6 people for wine tasting. When you pour wine for tasting you only pour about 2-4 ounces, which is less than a standard wine serving. Make sure you familiarize yourself with proper wine tasting techniques and wine tasting terms. This way you can help to educate your guests who aren't as knowledgeable as you will be.

Four to six different varieties of dessert wine is usually enough for a wine tasting party. More than that and you will over whelm your guests. You also have the option of choosing different varieties, or just choose one variety and pick bottles from different vineyards and wine-makers.

Your dessert options can be as elaborate as you want. Several dessert choices are best. But, cut them or divide them into smaller than normal portions. That way your guests can also be dessert-tasting as well as wine tasting. Make sure you provide plenty of water for your guests in between tasting different wines. They need to cleanse their pallets.

Alternately, you may want to keep the sweets simple. Great chocolates make a wonderful way to serve sweets with dessert wine tasting. Provide a variety of sweetness levels in the chocolate as well. Some very dark less sweet chocolates, some milk chocolates, even some white chocolates can make a beautiful dessert presentation with very little work on your part.

The most important part of your dessert wine-tasting party is for you to enjoy yourself. Drinking wine is all about enjoyment after all, so make sure you include yourself in the fun.