
Life is full of pasta-bilities. We partnered with Trinitas Cellars to create a spectacular Italian food and wine pairing. If you are an Italian food lover, this dinner party is for you. We have some easy entertaining tips that you can pull off without hiring a professional party planner or a Michelin star chef. We are excited to share our Italian dinner party ideas with you.
Who is Trinitas Cellars?
When there’s a wine, there’s a way. We initially worked with Trinitas Cellars in 2020 to create a fall wine tasting at home. We also stopped by their tasting room during our Napa trip and enjoyed a delicious chocolate and wine pairing. The Busch Family founded Trinitas in 2002 in Napa Valley. The wines are crafted in the iconic California style. We worked with Sonyia Grabski to select the wines for this tasting at home.
- 2018 Busch Bubbles
- 2015 Petite Sirah
- 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon
- 2015 Our Lady of Guadalupe
- 2014 SBLAM Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc

Italian Food and Wine Pairing: Style a Winter Tablescape
It’s pasta-tively amazing. A chic dinner table sets the tone for any dinner party. With some Twinspiration, you can transform an ordinary dinner into a memorable Italian dinner party. We dressed the table with royal blue tablelinens. Each place setting featured a silver charger plate, a green dinner plate and a beige napkin tucked inside a . The floral arrangements included crimson and white roses, mums and daisies. We also added white candles inside clear vases. This dinner table is quite easy to set up and there’s nothing quite like the magic of a cozy winter dinner party.

Italian Food and Wine Pairing: The Menu
Bon Appecheese! We created the perfect Italian dinner party menu. Our 4-course meal started with air-fried Arancini and the 2018 Busch Bubbles. We’ve prepared these Arancini many times. They are rich, creamy and delicious. Since they are air fried, they are a bit healthier than traditional Arancini. We served the Arancini with marinara sauce, which you can make or buy (we’ve done both depending on how much time we have). Sparkling wine with fried foods is an iconic, irresistible pairing.

Fried and fizzy. We paired the Arancini with the 2018 Busch Bubbles, an elegant and complex Blanc de Noir. This sparkling wine opens with a lovely bouquet of cherry blossom, brioche, oyster shells, and lime pith aromas and has notes of cranberry, lemon zest, sea salt, and hibiscus. Since fried foods are rich, it’s nice to drink something refreshing with a good amount of acidity to them.

Fizz the season. The 2018 Busch Bubbles is a great way to began an Italian dinner party. Sparkling wine isn’t just for New Year’s or special occasions. You can serve this wine with a fabulous dinner party at home anytime.

Rooting for you. Our second Italian food and wine pairing was a root vegetable salad paired with the 2015 Petite Sirah. Since the Arancini is a rich dish, we wanted a light salad for course 2. This is no ordinary salad. It took longer than the main to prepare.

Que. Syrah. Syrah. This Petite Sirah has spicy cinnamon and cedar aromas, massive ripe blackberry flavors and baking-spice accents. The full bodied, dry dark purple wine features a high level of fine-grained tannins. The earthy flavors of the root vegetables complemented the flavors of the Petite Sirah.

All’s wool that end’s wool. For the main, we served Lamb Chops Scottadito. We paired the lamb with both the 2015 Our Lady of Guadalupe and the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon. We decanted both wines for a few hours.

On cloud wine. The 2015 Our Lady of Guadalupe is a limited edition wine that is part of Trinitas’s faith based series. This patron saint is celebrated on December 12th, which is also the birthday of Founder, Steph Busch and General Manager, Sonyia Grabski. This red blend is bold and brimming with fruit. The artwork on the label is also heavenly.

Cabernet. More like caber-yay! The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon has dark, toasted spices and rich, ripe blackberry and plum aromas. We enjoyed sipping both wines with the lamb chops. You can’t go wrong with either wine.

Donut go breaking my heart. We concluded our meal with air-fried Bomboloni with a Nutella drizzle and the 2014 SBLAM Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Our nephew, Dylan and niece, Keira love donuts and were excited to make Italian donuts from scratch. This dessert is a must have for your next Italian dinner party. If you don’t have an air-fryer, you need to get one.

The 2014 SBLAM Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc is rich and sweet with aromas of honeysuckle, melon, wildflower, and caramelized sugar. This dessert wine paired perfectly with our heavenly bomboloni.

This year, host your own Italian dinner party with a fantastic Italian food and wine pairing. Make sure to include our favorite wines from Trinitas Cellars.


In Italy, they add work and life on to food and wine.
Patrice Evra
The Arancini with the 2018 Busch Bubbles sounds like my favourite pairing! I’ll have to try.
I loved a red wine so much that I got high blood pressure. So, now is bye-bye to red, and hello to white wine.
Such a fancy dinner. I love the Italian food paired with wine
I haven’t tried any of these. Sounds like a nice selection of wines and useful pairings.
Nice! Everything looked wonderful! Italian cuisine is a favorite of mine!
I love wine and Italian food, but I’m terrible at figuring out how to pair them, so this is so helpful! The sauvignon blanc sounds especially good, and air-fried bomboloni with nutella drizzle? I need to try this!!
So many elegant platings here. I am vicariously thrilled to see them on your blog.
When I have dinner parties I usually hand my guests a glass of sparkling wine when they just arrive so they can enjoy and relax before dinner. When we sit down for the actual meal I usually open a bottle of red wine that goes well with almost everything. Pairing the right wine with the meal is so important.
Hhhhmmmm….these are nice suggestions! I like them so much. I will start with the food, though and work my way from there!
I like wine and Italian cuisine so much. Thank you for sharing the info on how to pair those two!
I’m studying food and wine pairing so I really appreciate this post! I learned a lot from it. I hope I can try those wine selections.
This looks so good. I Don’t drink wine especially if it has alcohol but I love Italian cuisine. I guess I can also pair these meals with fruit wine.
I’m not a red wine person. But they do look like they are great wine. The food pairing looks awesome.
“An expertly curated guide to pairing Italian food with wine, offering delicious suggestions for an unforgettable dining experience!”