Hey Eve,
Here’s a fundraiser for the high school that’s easy to get behind!
Good evening, this is Golden Valley Parent Advisory Council, President, Neisha Meyers calling with an announcement of the next PAC fund raiser which is for adults only. It is fun filled night scheduled to be on Tuesday, November 17th @ All Corked Up. The event includes four tastings and three appetizers.
Sure beats selling wrapping paper!
G.
Okay, I’m so on board for this. An opportunity to wine it up and support our local schools at the same time. Are you kidding me? Apparently not.
So I stealthily traversed ACU’s parking lot this past Tuesday night avoiding all SUV’s with “proud parent” this bumper stickers and “proud parent” that license plate frames. I deftly avoided the already crowded front room of ACU patrons and entered the side room…
Already filled with mothers, and a few fathers for a change, and set up with wine glasses, carafes of iced water, appetizers of sharp and mellow cheeses, dried fruit, candied nuts, spinach dip, meatballs…(And a few requisite baskets for silent auction, a necessary item to be found at every charity event!)
All managed, as usual, by Jennifer Russell, “Welcome everyone. We are here to make sure you have a very good evening of wine tasting.” And, when she caught me perusing the room asked me privately, “I saw you looking around, what would you like? What do you need?”
“Wine.”
So on we go: Liberty School Chardonnay 2006 from California Central Coast was our first wine, and my favorite of the evening. Even though Jennifer prompted us to peruse the wine notes that were on a sheet in front of every guest I asked my wine 101 table mates not to. Coercing them to taste and think about on their own, and then, when all were ready to share aloud only then what we had found… found that tasting is subjective. My original thought was “bowl of fruit” while others commented on the “sugary flavor” and lack of overwhelming Oak.
Next up was a Kenwood Pinot Noir 2006 from California’s Russian River Valley. Here we found a young nose, high acid/tannins. More than we expected.
Grayson Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 California had a full nose with both fruit and spice. I found it young, lacking in flavor, but within 10 minutes in my glass agreed with my table mates that it was “creamy”.
Our final wine, Ritzman Piesporter Michelsberg Spatlese 2008 from the Mosel region of Germany was different for my group. While I got “Starburst fruit chew” and “Popsicle” they got “Big Pop Popsicle”. There was a surprise tang and not the usual sugar bomb for a Spatlese that I found. And the smoked Gouda was a good pairing in my book.
I tried to escape quickly after that but found myself unable to pass some friends that had arrived in the front room: Mo and Linda Hafizi and Steve and Rose Chegwin. They tested me on my beer knowledge, wine knowledge, and all the gossip I could come up with involving both and locals. But, being a good girl, I high-tailed it out of there before I could cause too much trouble.
I had the schoolgirls following me out the door!
