How to Disaster-Proof your Next Party

I had just started recording the sabering of a champagne bottle when my phone screeched an emergency alert of a tornado warning.

I was standing on the edge of the Trius vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake; I was invited for lunch to celebrate the annual international Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration (I4C.) Trius was hosting its regular Sparkling Wine Reception for 40 wine lovers.

After weeks of stupefyingly hot temperatures and a few days of eerily orange skies from the drifting smoke of wildfires blazing in the north of the province, the downpour came Saturday. A good thing overall, but it would have been better if the rain came overnight and not smack in the middle of a posh vineyard gala.

We were supposed to eat outside under the languorous covering of a vine-woven gazebo. When the grey, bulging clouds couldn’t hold it in any longer, and rain burst like an overdue pregnancy, well, plans changed.

Among the many things wineries are skilled at, is understanding weather patterns to an obsessive, preternatural degree. Ask any winemaker if it will be a white Christmas, and they can tell you the moment flakes will start falling six-months out. So naturally, Trius was prepared for the storm, and the private dining room was set and decorated, ice buckets on the ready, as the back-up plan.

This is what separates the boys from the men in the raw battleground of hosting.

There’s a reason Trius has earned a Michelin rating the last two-years running. Despite the intentional bonhomie of the winery, behind all that affability is a well-oiled machine that leaves nothing to chance. Like the proverbial duck, cool as a cucumber on the sight lines, but under the water its little webbed feet are paddling with the force of an ocean-liner, the team at Trius is doing the same.

I got a rare opportunity to watch the kitchen in action, as well as enjoy the lunch service. Despite the thunderous brouhaha outside, it was pure c’est la vie inside. So today, I want to share with you the Michelin-worthy lessons from a lunch that could have been a disaster but was a flawless success.