Hunting club · hunt dinner · Gironde
Wine for a hunt dinner: 60 hunters, game, and the right red
The hunt dinner is an institution in the Gironde: 60 to 100 guests, game, a meal that goes on and on. It needs a red that stands up to a civet, and volume for the long haul. The calculator below is set up for exactly that, and the quote goes to the hunting club.
The calculation for your dinner
Set for 60 guests, a one-hour aperitif then the meal, with 90% drinkers: at a hunt dinner, almost everyone drinks. Change whatever doesn't fit you.
Two wines, not ten
A bag-in-box of red
The meal lasts four hours. A 5- or 10-litre bag-in-box at each end of the table pours non-stop, no corks, no breakages. The bag-in-box or bottle page prices the saving.
One good bottle per table
With the civet or the wild boar, a Saint-Émilion or a Fronsac of five to eight years, one bottle for six set down with the dish. The wine with duck page goes into the Right Bank and game.
A dry white or a rosé
An hour standing before sitting down to eat: one bottle for four, served chilled. No need for sparkling, except for the end-of-season dinner.
The club's other meals
AGM, landowners' dinner, Saint-Hubert celebration: the general calculator uses the same model without presets.
Delivery to the hunting lodge, invoice to the club
A village hall or a hunting lodge is not an address like any other. Give us the exact delivery point and someone present, and tell us whether a 12-tonne lorry can get down the track. If not, delivery is made to the chairman or treasurer, in the week of the dinner.
The invoice is made out to the hunting club, with VAT. Payment before dispatch, by bank transfer or cheque. For an annual dinner, a single order is enough; for a club that holds several dinners, a price for the year can be discussed.
Unopened cases are not taken back. That is why the calculator keeps the margin tight at 10%: one case too many ends up at the next AGM, ten cases too many stay in the lodge until the following year.
How much wine for a hunt dinner of 60 people?
Allow about forty bottles, or the equivalent: two 10-litre bag-in-boxes of red for the long haul, about ten bottles of white or rosé for the aperitif, and one good bottle of red per table for the main course. The calculator gives the exact figure with your number of guests.
Which wine with game?
A Right Bank red with a few years on it: Saint-Émilion, Fronsac, Castillon, Pomerol if the budget allows. Ripe merlot stands up to the sauce and the civet, where a young Médoc comes across as harsh.
Isn't bag-in-box bad wine?
The container doesn't make the wine. A decent Bordeaux in bag-in-box is the same wine as in bottle, with no cork, no oxidation for six weeks, and a quarter cheaper. At a table of hunters that lasts four hours, it is the right tool.
Do you need a licence to serve wine at a hunt dinner?
Not if the dinner is for members only and the wine is included in the price of the meal. If the club sells drinks to non-members, that is a refreshment bar (buvette) and the town hall (mairie) must be asked. If in doubt, the town hall decides.