Simple Saturday: Wine and Cheese Party

Today, we're covering a simple idea for a friend, neighborhood or just because wine and cheese party.

I really like the idea of wine and cheese because...well what's there not to like.

It's really easy for people to mingle at a wine and cheese party, it caters to many tastes and allows you to showcase all of your cracker-buying, cheese-selecting and appetizer-making skills.


Start out by planning the cheeses, wines, snacks, breads and crackers that you will be serving. I like to do this by making a "Cheese-agram" (aka cheese diagram). This will help you get organized on what you'll be serving, how to present it and where to put things. This is especially helpful if you live in an apartment and have limited space.

Next, pick up a few tasty cheeses. I went to Aldi and picked up a Welsh cheddar, sharp cheddar, jalapeno havarti, herbed goat cheese and a plain goat cheese. Make sure and pick up a variety of strong and mild tastes and a variance in textures for your cheeses.

They also have a variety of tasty party crackers at Aldi for a really budget-friendly price.

I chose to sweeten up the cheeses by offering a cream cheese pepper jelly option and putting fig jam over the top of the plain goat cheese.

It's important to have a variety of sweet and savory options at your party.

A few days ahead of time you can plan out your other snacks. For sweets, I chose fresh apple slices, pomegranate seeds and some small slices of Apple Crumb Cake. For savories, I made a batch of Savory Spiced Nuts and bought pita chips and hummus as well as snack mix for easy sides.

Then, the day of you'll want to pick up a fresh baguette (thanks to Apple Blossom for mine) and right before the guests arrive you can toast slices with a bit of olive oil until lightly brown and crisp.

To bring it all together for your party, set out the cheeses (let them come to room temperature for about an hour before your party starts), snacks, sweets and crackers in an appealing and fun way. I found that a really easy way to label the cheeses and snacks was to print out little labels for each of them and tape them to the top of a toothpick and stick it in the right cheese.

Oh and for the wine, I wasn't expecting a big group of guests so I just bought 2 whites (a Sauvignon Blanc and a chardonnay) and a red blend. And I had a few bubbly but non-alcoholic drinks for those not partaking.

A wine and cheese party is always a good idea because it's easy to throw together, fun to host and, more importantly, fabulous to attend!