Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Party - 2008 Edition

We went to Brigitte and Craig's fifth annual Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Party on Friday night (although it was only the third year for us). As usual, a good time was had by all; they came up with more games than ever that made for many many laughs. The company was great, as were the decorations, the food and, of course, the wine! Can't wait for next year :)

Brigitte's gorgeous Christmas tree

Wonderful food

The wine table early in the night, before everyone else arrived!

The ever-popular present game...and Leslie tearing into it!
And we have a winner! Yay Evelin!
A new edition to the game file; the idea was to make reindeer antlers as quickly as possible with 8 balloons and a pair of nylons. In order to win, you had to wear them :)

New Wines Party

Last night was the New Wines Party that I mentioned in an earlier post (the one with all the wine bottles). As expected we had a great time with great people, ate like royalty and drank like....fish, I suppose. This party is famous for its games, and each year the hosts, Brigitte and Craig, try to come up with new and fun games for their guests to play and, as expected, they certainly succeeded. Almost 200 photos were taken with my camera last night but I'll keep the post a short one today. The first pic is of my designated wine glass (with 30 people drinking wine, the glasses MUST be labelled!) and the second shows you one of the games; this one is faithfully played every year. Everyone sits on the floor in a circle and takes turns rolling a die (quickly). When you role a '6' you move into the middle and have to put on a toque, a scarf and a pair of mitts (in this case a pair of Christmas-themed oven mitts) and try to unwrap a gift that has many layers of tape and paper. It gets funny (and chaotic) when sixes are rolled often and people are switching places and the 'costume'; sometimes you no sooner get on all the gear and someone rolls a six and takes it all away from you. The person who finally gets to the gift wins. I had 5 tries at it but, alas, it was not me who won :(
We're already looking forward to next year's edition; it'll be the 5th annual...

Les vins nouveaux....

I know, I know! This has nothing to do with wine....... :)

I carpool to my lab most days and today I was the passenger. I decided to bring my camera with me to work for other reasons (you'll see below) and I had it out in the car as I was *trying* to photograph some water droplets on the windshield. That didn't work out well but it came in pretty handy when we came upon this overturned car outside of St. Pat's high school on Alta Vista (for the Ottawa folks). Hopefully its occupants escaped uninjured :)

So, the real reason I had my camera with me was I was accompanying Brigitte on her inaugural 2007 trip (there will be more yet, surely) to the LCBO for her Beaujolais "fix". For those who aren't familiar with the tremendous popularity of 'les nouveaux vins' (like I wasn't until last year) in places east of Ottawa, these wines are introduced at this time each year and if you live in Moncton and haven't already paid a visit to your local distributor you're probably S-O-L. In Ottawa the rush isn't quite as fierce but you still have to be on-the-ball. Regardless, for us this wine isn't for general consumption, but for Brigitte and Craig's fourth annual New Wines Party that is set to happen in 2 weeks. For my husband and I, this party officially kicks off our holiday season and we wouldn't miss it for the world. Anyway, we bought a number of bottles this evening and will have to grab a few more in the next few days. So, I pulled out my camera in the LCBO and took a few pics; people must have thought I was nuts.

Beaujolais displays

Then we browsed around and I took several more pictures of labels I liked. Is this supposed to mean that your brain is the size of a grape OR that when it comes to wines you actually know what you're talking about?!?!?! :) :)

Reminded me of 'Grand feud' in a bottle with an Italian accent;
I am aware that that makes me a silly dork :)

I actually wonder if Mikey knows anything about making wine; this is in my husband's honour as he is currently away on a golf trip with the guys.

Again, for my hubby. Greg Norman makes great golf clothing;
I'm not so sure about the wines but I think I'd be willing to try them. After all, the Aussies make the best shiraz!

I just really like the contoured wall covered in vintages :)