Dinner party etiquette: can you bring your unopened wine home from a dinner party? - Wine + Champagne

Nov 15, 2024

Here’s to pour decisions.

So you’re invited to a dinner party. How nice. You show up in all your finery, and proffer the host a lovely bottle of pinot noir that you dropped a sweet $40 on at the local bottle-o. They accept it graciously. All very mature and dignified.

But as the evening wears on, and the last of the dessert has been savoured and the plates cleared away, your bottle of wine remains on the table, unopened. As you prepare to take your leave, can you bring it home with you?

Let’s imagine there’s a tiny little sommelier sitting on each of your shoulders – one with a halo, and the other with devil horns.

“Go on,” the sinful sommelier whispers in your ear. “That’s a $40 bottle of wine. And they didn’t even open it! Talk about ungrateful. Just grab it and head for the door. No one will know.”

However, your saintly sidekick disagrees: “You brought that wine as a gift,” it says. “Your friend has been kind enough to cook you a lovely meal; it’s only right that you thank them with this equally lovely bottle of wine. After all, what would Jesus do?”

While everyone knows that Jesus wouldn’t even need to bring a bottle of wine at all (he’d just magic some up out of the kitchen tap), our haloed hero does have a point. Hosting a dinner party isn’t cheap, and so it is polite to bring something to the table, to help with overall costs, and as a way to say ‘thank you’.

But does it still count if the host gets to drink the whole bottle themselves later on? Probably while on the phone with their bestie, bitching about all of you? You didn’t even get a taste. And 40 bucks is a precious lot of money these days – it’s almost enough to buy you half a flat white at a trendy inner-city cafe.

Ah, get thee behind me, Satan. Yes, it might hurt to leave that bottle behind, but ultimately, whether you’re a sinner or a saint, it’s the decent thing to do. You gave that wine to the host, and there are no take backsies.

And let’s not forget how undeniably awkward it would be, to have people watch you brazenly pick up a bottle of wine from the middle of the table and head out the door, all while arguing with two invisible people on either side of you.

What is the best wine to bring to a dinner party?

This will depend on the type of food being served, so if you don’t know, check with the host. If the host is unavailable, or unwilling to divulge details (or just hasn’t got around to thinking up a menu yet), your best bet is to go for something that won’t overwhelm the palate with big flavours. A pinot noir will nicely emphasise the flavours of most savoury dishes, while on the white spectrum, a crisp dry pinot grigio will refresh the palate and not offend anyone’s sensibilities. You could also just play it safe and bring bubbles. Everyone likes bubbles.