Engagement · PACS · cocktail reception
Wine for an engagement party or a PACS: forty guests, a cocktail reception, three wines
An engagement or a PACS (the French civil partnership) is celebrated standing up, at the end of the day, with both families and close friends: forty or so guests, a cocktail reception lasting three hours, and a toast. It isn't the wedding, and the wine doesn't need to imitate it: a champagne, a white, a red, well chosen, and nothing else.
The wine for the evening
Set for 40 guests: a three-hour standing cocktail reception, 80% drinkers. Half sparkling, for the toast and the first glasses; a quarter white, a quarter red, for the food that follows. No rosé: three wines are enough.
What the evening gets through
Arrivals and the toast
The two families meet, sometimes for the first time. A glass on arrival, one for the toast, when one of the fathers or one of the witnesses says a few words. About ten bottles for 32 drinkers, mostly champagne.
The buffet
Verrines, charcuterie, hot pastries: the white goes with fish and fresh cheese, the red with cold meats and savoury tarts. Another ten or so bottles over two hours.
The cake
If a dessert closes the evening, keep two bottles of champagne chilled for it. No need for a sweet wine: champagne bridges the gap.
The raw count is 21 bottles; the calculator shows 24 after the 8% margin and rounding up to full cases per colour: 12 champagne, 6 white, 6 red. Four cases, 0.6 bottles per guest.
Three wines, not ten
A champagne, a white, a red: the short list
A cocktail reception for forty gains nothing from a list of six wines: guests have a glass in one hand and a plate in the other, nobody compares. Three well-chosen wines are served faster, chill more easily, and what is left is shared out without a headache. The champagne carries the evening; a fresh, dry white Bordeaux holds the buffet; a supple, low-tannin red, served slightly cool, goes with the charcuterie and tarts.
The champagne is the spending that counts: twelve bottles out of twenty-four, and it is the one raised for the toast. A non-vintage brut from a good house is enough; crémant is available on request and costs less, but the calculator counts in champagne. For the white and the red, the “standard” level does the job at that time of day.
And it is a chance to taste the wedding wine. If a wedding follows, in a year or two, serve the red and white you have in mind at the engagement: forty people will give their opinion without knowing it. The wedding wine page does the count for a hundred guests, meal and evening included.
How many bottles for an engagement party of 40 people?
Twenty-one in the raw count for a three-hour cocktail reception, 24 rounded up to full cases: 12 champagne, 6 white, 6 red, or 0.6 bottles per guest. The cocktail reception page goes through the same calculation with a rosé as well.
What wine budget for an engagement party or a PACS?
About €390 for 40 guests with an entry-level champagne and standard Bordeaux, €564 at good level, a little under €1,000 at grand cru level. Champagne makes up more than half the bill in every case. Crémant, on request, brings it down; the price is given on the quote, and the page how many bottles of champagne counts the sparkling on its own.
Do you need a wine merchant for a small party?
Not below thirty or so guests. At 30 guests, the calculator counts by the bottle, about twenty bottles, and tells you that you don't need us: a wine shop will sell you three wines by the bottle and advise you just as well. From about 32 guests, the calculation switches to full cases, and a quote becomes worthwhile, especially for the champagne.
Engagement party and PACS: is it the same calculation?
Yes, if the format is the same: a standing cocktail reception at the end of the day. A PACS is sometimes celebrated with a seated meal after the town hall: tick the meal in the calculator, which adds three glasses per drinker and a 10% margin. For a different format, the general calculator starts from scratch. For a civil wedding followed by lunch, see the page civil wedding and lunch.
How to prepare the evening
- A month before: settle the number of guests, choose the champagne, taste two whites and two reds if the wedding follows.
- A week before: delivery, cases stored cool and flat. Plan a tub and ice: twelve bottles of champagne won't fit in a fridge.
- On the day: champagne at 8 °C, white at 10 °C, red at 16 °C. Two bottles of champagne kept back for the toast, not opened on arrival.
A seated meal after the town hall, a different number of guests? The general calculator does the same sums without presets. Do the figures work? Request a quote, and say if you would like to taste the wines for the wedding to come.