Sarah on November 11, 2013 0 Comments It’s officially entertaining season. You’ve planned a menu, picked the best bottles of bubbly, and compiled the hippest holiday playlist your iPod has ever seen. Not to add to your ever-growing list of to-dos, but it’s important to remember that serving up the perfect wines and/or champagne goes way beyond the bottles themselves. Whether you’re hosting a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, a festive Christmas party, a swanky New Year’s Eve bash or all of the above, you’re going to need some serving supplies. Here are a few entertaining must-haves that will make beverage serving both stylish and effortless: 1. Wine & Bar Cart You don’t want to spend your entire party running back and forth to the kitchen or searching through cabinets for your supplies. A wine and bar cart removes the need for all of that. It serves as a home base for all of your supplies — bottles, stemware, liquor, opening tools, etc. You can use the cart as a self-serving station for your guests or a mobile bartending station for yourself or hired help. Even if you already have a wet bar in your home, a mobile wine cart can serve as a supplemental drink station in another room, preventing overcrowding at your bar. 2. Decanters Decanters serve multiple functions when serving wine, but for entertaining purposes, its primary function is elegance. Serving and pouring wine from a decanter elevates not only the bouquet of the wine but also the experience for your guests. Also, if you’d like to eliminate label judgments of your chosen bottles, a decanter masks everything about the wine but its taste. 3. Break-Resistant Stemware You may have already accepted the fact that you’re going to lose a wine glass or a champagne flute to a clumsy guest, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Schott Zwiesel, Riedel & Spiegelau all offer break-resistant stemware collections. Of course, there’s no insurance against the glass-clinking “Cheers!” enthusiast, but the lead-free Tritan Collection from Schott Zwiesel might help save you a few broken glasses. 4. Corkscrews Having a corkscrew on hand may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s the quality of wine opening corkscrew that’s important. You need something reliable and efficient when serving to your guests. You don’t want to be pulling and prying on stuck corks or, even worse, breaking delicate corks while opening bottles during your party. Look for models that feature a stainless steel screw, like those offered by Le Creuset. 5. Bottle Stoppers When offering different wine options, you need to anticipate having at least a few bottles of wine open at once. It’s also probable that not all bottles will get finished over the course of the party. If you’ve ever had to pour out an expensive bottle of wine because it’s been open and spoiled, you know how upsetting it can be. Having quality bottle stoppers ready to preserve these open bottles will keep you from having to waste wine and money. It can be hard to keep your composure while entertaining during the holidays, but by using these 5 must-have serving tools, you’ll be able to spend more time enjoying yourself and your guests and less time running around serving drinks. Cheers to that!