Family reunion · cousins · weekend
How much wine for a family reunion of 80 people over two days?
A family reunion is not a wedding: several meals, children everywhere, grandparents who drink one glass, not three, a holiday house thirty kilometres from the nearest supermarket. The calculator counts two meals, an aperitif and a brunch, with 70% drinkers.
The calculation over the weekend
Set for 80 people: a 90-minute aperitif on Saturday, two seated meals (Saturday evening, Sunday lunch), Sunday morning brunch, 70% drinking wine. Add a meal if you arrive on Friday evening.
The right format for each moment
Not everything is served by the bottle. Over a weekend, format matters as much as quantity: what is drunk at lunch under an open barn doesn't need a label; what is drunk at Saturday dinner does.
Saturday lunch, arrival
- 5 L bag-in-box red and rosé: the equivalent of 6.7 bottles, opened and poured as you go, with no half-finished bottles lying around.
- A case of chilled white for those who prefer it.
Saturday evening, the dinner
- Bottles: this is the reunion meal, the one people talk about. A white with the starter, a good-level red after that.
- Sparkling at the aperitif beforehand, a flute and a half per drinker over an hour and a half.
Sunday, brunch and lunch
- Sparkling and rosé at brunch, a flute and a half per drinker, no more: there was dancing the night before.
- Bag-in-box again for the farewell lunch, and whatever is left goes into the car boots.
The calculator counts in 75 cl bottles. To convert the “lunch” line into bag-in-box, divide by 6.7 and round up to the next box. A bag-in-box keeps for a month once opened: a box started on Sunday isn't wasted.
How many bottles for 80 people over a weekend?
Around 110 bottles with an aperitif, two meals and a brunch, counting 70% drinkers. That sounds like a lot; it is a little under one and a half bottles per person over two days and four moments. The calculator gives the split by colour and rounds up to the case.
Why 70% drinkers and not 80?
Because a family reunion brings together four generations. Out of 80 people, there are easily fifteen children, five teenagers, a few pregnant women and grandparents who stop at one glass. The real rate is between 60 and 75%; 70% is a cautious average. If your family is made up of adults aged 30 to 50, go back up to 80.
Should it be delivered to the holiday house or to the organiser?
To the holiday house, in the week of the event, if the owner agrees to take delivery. Otherwise to the organiser, who loads up a car. Twelve cases fit in an estate car, not in a city car. Lead times, costs by band and the difference between parcel and pallet are on the delivery page.
What do you do with wine left over on Sunday evening?
Share it between the branches of the family, which is often the simplest way of splitting the bill. Unopened cases are not taken back; the calculator applies a 10% margin and no more, precisely so that Sunday evening ends with two cases to share and not ten.
Where family reunions go wrong
- One level of wine for the whole weekend. Put the money on Saturday dinner. The farewell lunch is happy with a decent red in bag-in-box, and nobody complains.
- No fridge for 30 bottles of white and sparkling. The holiday house fridge is full of charcuterie. Plan two tubs, ice from the supermarket on Saturday morning, and a tap nearby.
- Counting the children among the drinkers and forgetting them for soft drinks. Plan juice and sparkling water for a third of the guests; that is what runs out first, never the wine.
- Finding out on Sunday that the supermarket is thirty kilometres away. That is the argument for delivery to the holiday house: everything arrives on Thursday, nothing to fetch.
A milestone birthday in the middle of the weekend? The 50th birthday page adds the bottle from the birth year. For a different running order, the general calculator starts from scratch. Figures look right? Ask for a quote.