wine tastings and wine dinners and mmmmmm, wine.

obviously, wine is a an important part of what we do.

i truly hope that people attending our wine classes are less intimidated by the time they end an evening with us... there was a time when people were somewhat scared of the great big world of wines and stuck to one kind, it went in waves: merlot, chardonnay, chianti, pinot - it seemed like a trend to drink a certain type of grape, regardless of the quality of it and sadly, regardless of the meal to come.

nowadays, we tend to search for the best in each region and pair accordingly with the meals - thank goodness for both the food and wine!!! this week, we discovered a few treasures from California...

Pooch Pucilowski is a certified wine educator from Sacramento, California... he is an absolutely stellar speaker, very charismatic, and certainly very knowledgeable. we had the great honor of hosting two events on Wednesday with him: one for trade, one for public.

for the trade event, Candice brought out her preserves


she has been working hard in the past weeks to can her own special chutneys for cocktails and wine tastings. no sad storebought pickled veggies! no lackluster olives!


along with these preserves, our lucky day guests sampled some delicious Niagara Food Specialties prosciutto, bresaola and salami. obviously, i had to sample too and can certify that they are the best.

as for the evening, i could not have described it any better than Rachelle, a lady who has now attended a few of our classes, take a peak at her blog entry.

-marysol