Turn Your Living Room into a Cocktail Lounge—on a Budget

How Much Wine Should I Have?

Figure one bottle of wine per eight guests. Although white wine gets most of the love at parties during the rest of the year, when the weather turns cold, the number of red wine drinkers increases. Oldman's advice is to go with a 60-40 ratio so you have slightly more red than white. And sparkling wine is always popular at the holidays; Oldman favors inexpensive American or Italian varieties for large gatherings. (A 750-milliliter bottle fills six regular champagne glasses.)