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Pinot Noir and pizza? Pinot Gris and sushi? You bet! Together, King Estate Winery, Wine Brats and Wine.com are helping rewrite the rules, or better yet, completely abandoning the myths surrounding food and wine pairings. Here's the proposition: challenge your friends to create the most unexpected wine and food combos with King Estate wines or borrow from the winery's menu of favorite unconventional parings for your party.

Below, we've got all the tips and downloadable PDF files for your "Daring Pairing, Encore!" experiment including recipes, hosting tips, trivia, Oregon wine regions and winemaker cheat sheets. Better yet, you can order your tour wines directly from Wine.com by following the links below.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER WINES FROM WINE.COM

THEME SPECIFIC HOSTING TIPS

THE STORY OF KING ESTATE WINERY

KING ESTATE WINERY'S DINNER RECIPES

MENU SHELL - INSIDE

MENU SHELL - OUTSIDE COVER

WINEMAKER CHEAT SHEETS

OREGON'S WINE REGIONS

KING ESTATE WINERY'S COOKBOOK

TRIVIA GAME

Dinner Party Themes, Prizes, and Other Ideas
Yes, we dare you to host your own "Daring Pairing, Encore!" Dinner Party. Okay, it's not much of a dare considering everything you need is provided right here. We have a list of links below for access to wine from Wine.com, music from Justin King and cook books from King Estate.

Now let's look at the four wines from the "Daring Pairing, Encore!" Tour:
King Estate 2001 Pinot Gris
King Estate 1999 Chardonnay
King Estate 1999 Pinot Noir
King Estate 2001 Vin Glace' (dessert wine).

Click here to order your King Estate wines from Wine.com.

WINEMAKER CHEAT SHEET

As part of our educational focus on wine regions, these King Estate wines are testament to Oregon's ascendancy as a world class wine region. To learn all about Oregon wine regions, click here.

Music
We're constantly exploring musical genres to set the tone for our tours and dinner parties. In the case of the "Daring Pairing" Tour, we've discovered something very unique. As you'll learn, when reading about the history of King Estate online, Ed King, Jr. founded the winery in 1992. Today, Ed's grandson, Justin King, is defining his own creative path as artist through the Northwest music scene...

Justin's background is a mix of musical styles that span the world. Drawing influences from Flamenco to Jazz, Celtic, Classical, African, Mainstream, to Americana. His love affair with the acoustic guitar began at about the age of 19, when Justin started performing solo guitar for crowds of up to two thousand people. Since then he has become a respected guitarist in the Northwest and is poised for a breakthrough on the national scene with his third album, Le Bleu.

So there's our musical daring pairing! We highly suggest you check out Justin's story, MP3's and albums by visiting his Web site at http://www.justinking.com.

Ordering Your Wine
Basically, there are 4 - 5 glasses of wine in every bottle, so we suggest you order 6 bottles of wine for every 4 - 8 people. Note that you don't have to finish every opened bottle of wine or polish off every glass. Below, we'll supply tips on dump buckets, responsible hospitality and how to store opened, unfinished wine.

As far as the cost of wine, you might want to make arrangements in advance with your guests that go beyond justassigning tasks for the evening. You may want to determine the overall cost of wine and appetizers in advance and divide evenly among your guests. If your guests are online, try coordinating your mixer with Yahoo Groups. And when it comes to collecting the bucks, it can be as simple as having them ante-up as they walk in the door. If so, we suggest you make it fun by creating a donation tin for Bacchus, the God of Wine. Be creative.

Storing Your Wine
Once you've ordered and received your wines, keep them in the wine.com insulated shipping box until the day of your mixer (unless you are blessed with a wine cellar). Once you've checked your order, just shove the box in the back of a cool closet. On the day of your dinner party, be sure to pull out your wines and place the white wines in the refrigerator approximately 2 hours before dinner. Red wine bottles should be cool to the touch, not warm. If you happen to forget, or are running late, chilling white wines in a bucket of ice and water will have them ready for sipping in 20 minutes.

Setting the Wine Table
Here's where the fun begins. Open all four wines at once and gently replace their corks into the neck. Replacing the corks will guard against spills, while allowing you to re-cork any leftover wine at the end of the evening (more on this later). If you order more than one of each wine, keep the extras in reserve and open appropriately. Place three wine glasses in front of each place setting. Pour approximately 3 oz of the Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in each glass. We suggest you save the Vin Glace' dessert wine for last.

Once you've poured the wines, randomly place the bottles around the table so guests can sip and pass as desired. We also recommend that you place two dump buckets on the table. These can be as classy as Champagne buckets or as tacky as empty coffee cans. This way your guests can taste and dump any wines as they move through the line up. We suggest you keep tastes small until guests find what they like. When they find what they like, then pour a full glass to enjoy. Encourage comments. Refer to the winemaker cheat sheets and other notes. Above all, enjoy the fruit of the vine!

HEY, I HAVE 20 FRIENDS COMING OVER...THAT'S 30 GLASSES!
No, we don't suggest you go out and buy a case of wineglasses. Ask guests to bring 3 glasses of their own. It's even better if the glasses they bring have a story attached to them, such as hand-me-downs from grandma or champagne flutes from a wedding. Once everyone's had a few sips and bites, encourage guests to start sharing stories by offering a toast and a story of your own. Dessert is a good time to play King Estate trivia for prizes..

TRIVIA GAME

Re-Corking the Leftovers
As we mentioned above, don't throw away your corks. If you have leftover wines at the end of the evening, re-cork the bottles and stick them in the fridge. Yes, and the red wines. They'll easily last 3 - 5 days. You might also divvy up the wines at the end of the evening and send them home with friends--just make sure the bottles are re-corked and, stored in the locked trunk of a car, and that the driver is sober.

TIPS ON SERVING THE FOOD & ASSIGNING RECIPES
UAs we stated above, the idea is to challenge your friends to create the most unexpected wine and food combos, or borrow from King Estate's recipes of favorite unconventional parings for your dinner party. You might also want to purchase King Estate's delicious cookbook to expand your options. It's your call.

Make sure you downloaded the "Daring Paring" menu shell in advance. It'll have pre-printed info on the King Estate wines, Oregon wine regions, etc. You'll need to include your own food menu as an insert. Once you've poured the wine, placed your menu at each setting and served the food (buffet, plated or in courses) begin your challenge.

Note that if a particular dish has been created as someone's favorite pairing, such as Pinot Gris with sushi that's great. However, make sure to taste all the wines with all the dishes or course by course. It's all about personal preferences and exploration! Again, if your guests are online, you may want to divvy up the menu using email or Yahoo Groups and assign the making of the dishes to your friends and guests.

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