Oscar Party Wine and Food

Later on today, I’ll be heading to a friends house for an Oscar party celebration of the 84th Academy Awards Ceremony. I am going in style, but I’m not talking about the clothes I’ll be wearing-comfy yoga pants, a plain black tee shirt, and a pair of sparkly flip flops for added bling. I’m talking about the movie themed food and wine I’ve assembled for this celebration of the years best films. I’ll be wearing one of these 2023 trending prom dresses from Peaches Boutique.

On the invitation for this pot-luck style party, each attendee was asked to bring a Best Picture Nominated themed dish:

Appetizer theme: ‘Moneyball’ (baseball) or ‘Descendents’ (Hawaiian)

Entree theme: ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ (New York)

Dessert theme: ‘Midnight In Paris’ (French) or ‘The Help’ (Southern style)

Movie themed drinks: Wine with a label that connects to the movies or concoctions like “Mommy Dearest Daiquiri” or “Marilyn Monroe Martini”.

I had recently watched the movie ‘Moneyball’, so I decided to take on the baseball themed appetizers. For a movie themed drink, I naturally decided on searching for a wine with a movie themed label or name. For such options you can go directly to GMPLabeling for quality work. The appetizers were easy. I picked up some quart sized Ball canning jars from a local market and filled them with ballpark goodies; such as, caramel corn, peanuts, pretzel sticks, chocolate covered pretzels and Twizzlers. I found some wooden shaped baseballs at the craft store, and drilled a hole in each one for a string to go through. I tied the string around the top of the jar and labeled each baseball with that jars contents.

For the wine, I knew I’d be doing a little label shopping. Label shopping doesn’t happen very often for me, I usually choose a wine based on region, grape varietal and price; however, themed parties are always an exception, and I’ve found some fun themed Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day wines. This was my first time shopping for a movie themed wine, and  I was surprised to easily find wines with fun and artsy labels which tie in perfectly with the nominations for today’s Academy Award line-up.

Although Francis Ford Coppola’s 2009 Black Label Claret doesn’t directly relate to one particular movie, it’s the perfectly obvious choice for an Oscar party because the famous Academy Award winning film director, producer and screen writer Francis Coppola owns this winery.

When I saw the piggy bank on the label of Italian wine Gertrude by La Maia Lina, I immediately thought ‘Moneyball’ and how the Oakland A’s once struggled against big money teams with very little funds.

The cake on Layer Cake’s Primitivo, aka Zinfandel, made me think of the movie ‘The Help’ because of the infamous pie scene where a servant urges her rude boss to eat a pie made of…something absolutely no one would want to eat.

If you’ve seen ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’, you’ll agree that the  Moppity Lock & Key 2010 Riesling wholly relates  to this intense movie about a nine-year-old boy who searches New York City for the lock that matches a key that was left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

A single glance at the black and white label on the 2004 Killibinbin Shiraz made me think of The Artist, a black and white romantic comedy that takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1932 and is about the relationship between an older silent film star and a rising young actress when silent films are replaced by talking films.

These wines were all perfect for this years Academy Awards nominees, but during my quest for a movie themed wine, I came across hundreds of wines that could some how relate to movies…those wines will be saved for another article. For now, I need to get in my comfy clothes, pack up my party wine and food, and head out for some award winning fun.

I wrote about Halloween wines here & Valentine’s Day wines here.