ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Our holiday wish
George Balling
Just in the last week we passed our 14-year anniversary since we opened The Dinner Party. It is hard for Mary and I to believe it has been that long in many ways. When we first opened our shop, in the “little store” as we now refer to it, we thought we not only had it all figured out but we also believed the growth would be rapid. Neither were true.
The one thing we never anticipated is how much we would be embraced by the community and how many great friends we would find along our journey with the shop. Our holiday wish and our holiday message are actually quite simple and will be well under our regular word count for this weekly column that has been running for 10ish of those 14 years. We would like to thank Mike Patrick, Kari Packer, Hillary Main and all at the Coeur d’Alene Press who continue to publish our wine column. They are all wonderful newspaper professionals and better people and have been great to work with over all these years.
Mostly we want to thank all of you for embracing so enthusiastically yet tenderly our notion of a fine wine and gift shop from the start and for being such great friends and supporters. Mary and I are honored to know all of you and can’t thank each of you enough for working with us.
Our holiday wish for all of you is to enjoy some great glasses of wine. Even more importantly we hope you can enjoy them with those you are closest to. We wish you great joy and health in 2022 and we hope your holidays and all of your coming months and years are filled with prosperity. It has been an honor to serve you.
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George Balling is co-owner with his wife, Mary Lancaster, of the dinner party, a wine and gift shop in Coeur d’Alene by Costco. The dinner party has won the award for best wine shop in North Idaho twice, including for 2018.
George is also published in several other publications around the country. After working in wineries in California and judging many wine competitions, he moved to Coeur d’Alene with Mary more than 10 years ago to open the shop.
You can also follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.