Friends · alumni, class year, regiment
Wine for a class reunion: 60 adults, a long evening, the bottle from your year
Twenty, thirty or forty years on, the class gets back together: former students, a school year, a regiment's barrack room. No children, few non-drinkers, an aperitif that goes on and on because everyone has twenty years to catch up on. The calculator is set to 60 guests, 85% drinkers, an aperitif, a dinner and a late evening. It gives 78 bottles. And there is the bottle from the class year, which deserves a look at the vintage before you buy it.
The evening's calculation
Set for 60 guests, an hour and a half of aperitif, a seated dinner, two hours of late evening, 85% drinkers. The share of drinkers is higher than at a wedding: a reunion is all adults, and nobody leaves before midnight.
The bottle from the class year
The vintage of the class year, opened at dessert and shared: a 3 cl sip for 60 people is 1.8 litres, a magnum and a bottle. Depending on the school, the class takes the year it started or the year it graduated; in the regiment, it is the year of the intake. For a reunion in 2026, here is what each round anniversary is worth, in red Bordeaux.
| Class | Year | How it drinks today |
|---|---|---|
| 10 years | 2016 · great | A great year, still young. Decanted an hour before, or in magnum, which carries it better on a table of sixty. |
| 20 years | 2006 · good | Serious, tannic, underrated; it is drinking now. The safe, sensible choice. |
| 25 years | 2001 · good | Elegant and classic, in the shadow of 2000. Very good to drink. |
| 30 years | 1996 · great | Superb Médoc, at maturity. The lucky class. |
| 35 years | 1991 · weak | April frost, small wines, tired today. Take 1990, a great year, one year away, and explain why in the speech. |
| 40 years | 1986 · great | Open at last, but at forty only the great châteaux, well kept, hold up. Known provenance essential, and a backup bottle. |
| 50 years | 1976 · average | Aged fast: most are past it. Take 1978, a great year, or a reliable magnum from the 2000s with the 1976 label on the menu card. |
The other years, from 1945 to 2010, are in the birth-year vintage tool: same table, same verdict, with a price range. An old great year costs €80–300 and more a bottle, a good one €40–120; it is the item people are happiest to share.
How many bottles for a class reunion of 60 people?
About sixty as a raw count, 78 in full cases: 24 sparkling, 18 white, 12 rosé, 24 red. Thirteen cases, 1.3 bottles per person over the evening, margin included. For a lunch with no late evening, or a different number, the general calculator redoes the count.
Why 85% drinkers?
Because they are all adults, and they came for this. The only real gap is the drivers: out of sixty, a handful drive home that same night. Plan rooms, car sharing or taxis, and water on the tables. The page wine and drivers counts those who don't drink and what they need.
What wine budget, and who pays?
For the 78 bottles in the calculation, around €1,030 at the decent level and €1,550 at the good level, so €17–26 per person, not counting the class-year bottle. Most classes include it in the ticket price, or set up a separate kitty for the wine. If several classmates want to use the occasion to fill their cellars at the same price, the page group buying with friends explains how to combine orders.
And if the class year was a bad one?
Say so, and take the next-door year. A 1991 opened in front of sixty people is an awkward moment; a 1990 served with “our year was frosted, here is the one before” gets the whole room laughing. For a family reunion rather than a class one, with children and several meals, the family reunion page is set up differently.
How is it different from a graduation?
Thirty years. At the graduation, the guests are twenty-two and on a small budget; the graduation page counts 60% drinkers and plenty of sparkling. At the reunion, the same people are fifty, with a seated dinner and a bottle from their year to open.
The mistakes at a class reunion
- Buying the class-year bottle without checking the vintage. 1976, 1991: some years no longer drink. Check the year before you announce it.
- A single old bottle for sixty. One bottle is twenty-five sips of 3 cl: thirty-five disappointed out of sixty. A magnum and a bottle give everyone a sip.
- Underestimating the aperitif. You haven't seen each other in twenty years: the aperitif goes on. An hour and a half at least in the calculator.
- Leaving the accounts until the end. Set the contribution before ordering; unopened cases are not taken back, and nobody wants to split them pro rata the next day.
The evening and the class-year bottle on a single quote: quote request, reply within 48 working hours.