Well, we did it. What started as a Facebook chat between Eve Bushman and me took on a life of its own. Enlisting Al Robles and Terri Rivera [owners of the wine bar and restaurant Cheers at All Corked Up] as well as Shelly Schutz of wine storage facility All Corked Up, a fundraising event was born – Pour Into Sandy, to benefit the victims of Hurricane Sandy.
Crowd in vip room and silent auction
As everything came together, it served as a reminder how giving the wine community and our own residents of the Santa Clarita Valley can be. It was very gratifying to see the outpouring of donations, volunteers and the wholesale participation of the residents of our area and beyond.
Karen and Mike Perlis, Chuck Wiedeman, Jackie Curran and Maureen McKaughan
And it definitely did come together. That evening, guests got to enjoy an amazing selection of wines, delicious food, and an awesome selection of silent auction items, donated by wineries as well as local residents and businesses. And, since the best kind of wine tasting events do not involve tickets that limit how many wines you can taste, guests got to taste as many wines as they wanted and re-taste those that interested them most, And while I can’t speak for the rest of the tables [as we were in the VIP lounge with Gagnon Cellars and the silent auction items], we got a LOT of re-tasters!
To everybody who participated in some way – THANK YOU!
I’d especially like to thank the following…
Karen Perlis smiling in VIP room
First of all, thank you to my wonderful wife Karen for putting up with me during the days leading up to the event as well as enthusiastically participating.
Thanks to the following wineries who responded to my personal appeal for donations:
Carlisle Winery
Clavo Cellars
Epoch Estate Wines
Gagnon Cellars
J Dusi Wines
Stillman Wines / Zeppelin Winery
Turley Wine Cellars
Thank you to all the volunteers for your hard work.
Big thank yous to Al Robles, Terri Rivera and Shelly Schutz for the work you did, as well as the use of your facilities and employees.
The biggest thank you is reserved for Eve. Without her superhuman efforts, this event would never have happened.
Eve and Eddie Bushman
Finally, I’d like to thank the people who actually read my columns. It was gratifying to get to meet some of you at the event. The coming weeks will probably see a reduction in my writing duties, although I expect to continue my editing responsibilities as well as doing more work behind the scenes to make our website better for you. Any suggestions you have in this regard would be appreciated.
Cheers!
Michael C. Perlis
Contributing Editor
Eve’s Wine 101
661-816-6838
http://evewine101.com/
