Whenever I host a dinner party I find that the most common “thank you for hosting us” gift is a bottle of wine. As it is, my refrigerator is exploding with food and the extra bottles of wine and champagne I keep on hand in case someone pops over for a casual visit or to share exciting news. But after the last few dinners, my refrigerator could barely close and my shelves looked like the walls of a liquor store. My husband and I decided it was time to rectify this “high class problem” and invest in two new things that would organize our stash as well as make our home more entertaining-friendly. Our investments:

Number 1: A wine rack where you can see each of the bottle’s labels.

Number 2: A wine fridge where you can control the temperature.

How to organize once you have these two items: Arrange your wine fridge by placing a few of your very “special” bottles in the back or at the bottom. That way you know they are ready and chilled at a moment’s notice but they aren’t in the way of your everyday entertaining. Then place the ones you plan to serve more regularly at eye level or closest to the front. For your wine rack, I recommend going left to right from fanciest to least fancy. Why do I recommend this tactic? Well, there was this one time my husband came home from work to find my girl friend and I enjoying a glass of red wine. He asked ‘politely’, “Amanda, why are you guys drinking a $150 bottle of wine on a Wednesday? Are you celebrating something?” Shocked and embarrassed I realized I had just grabbed the first bottle of red I had seen and popped it open without giving much thought. Woops! So, by having a system, you and your partner can be on the same page of what’s really special and what’s not! You may even want two racks, one for fancy occasions and one for everyday.

One last interesting fact that I learned from Wikipedia in this process is that champagne does not need to be stored on its side. I always worried it would go flat, but that’s actually false. So if after racking your wine you have run out of room for your champagne, don’t worry about standing the bottles along side the rack!

And last, if you are still on the fence about buying a wine fridge, ask yourself how much you entertain and for how many people. If you are like me and host dinners for more than 6 people at a time, I highly recommend the wine fridge since you easily go through a bottle per couple {plus a few extra in case people are really enjoying themselves}. Running out of chilled wine at a dinner party is the ultimate party foul! So I recommend being prepared!

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