ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Still the best way

Wine consumers all have the same quest. Find the bottles of wine we really like to drink. Many of us will find a wine professional to work with, one whose palate runs similar to ours and who knows what we like to drink on a regular basis. Others of us will find a winery they are passionate about, a winery that we like just about everything they make. While both are good approaches to purchasing wine, there are still risks. Occasionally even the most competent and seasoned wine professional will get a suggestion wrong. While the best winemakers are incredibly adept at adjusting to conditions from vintage to vintage, they will get one off from time to time. Either of these scenarios will leave us as wine consumers questioning our decisions.

There is still one way to ensure you are buying the wine you really want to drink, and that is to taste them before you buy them. This is why for most of the 15 plus years we have had the shop we have held monthly tastings and winemaker dinners. This past week we hosted a winemaker dinner with the Unfiltered Collection winery group out of Napa. Before we get to the wine though, we have to say something about our host restaurant for this event. We held the dinner at Seasons in downtown Coeur d'Alene. We have known Pepper Smock and his talented team of food and beverage professionals for some time, but we hadn’t held one of our events there in a bit. We can only say it is great to be back. The food was spectacular and newer chef for Seasons Jesse Waldman took an innovative approach and turned-out wonderful food. He used many of the wines we were tasting that evening as the base wine for the sauces and even for one course of a sorbet made with the Sauvignon Blanc from Theorize Winery.

The front of the house service team lead by general manager Daniel Bentley matched the food step for step providing timely and perfectly attentive service to all of our mutual guests. The evening could not have gone better and no doubt we will be back at Seasons soon for another winemaker dinner.

Both last Thursday at the Seasons dinner and on Friday at the tasting at the shop we tasted five wines from the combined winery group that includes AXR, Theorize and Pope Valley Wineries. The leading sellers from the two events were the same with their white wines the aforementioned Sauvignon Blanc and the Chardonnay selling the most. This is not always the case, many if not most times we will find that the best seller at the dinner will be different than that at the tasting.

This is why winemaker dinners held with such a focused and talented group like the crew at Seasons fill a valuable spot in an arsenal of choosing wine. Wine and food together change how we perceive both. When in the right chef’s hands, the wine enhances the food just as the food enhances the wine. The best chefs know how to take advantage of this simple, or perhaps not so simple, axiom to the benefit of all wine consumers that can attend.

The other reason both dinners like we held and will hold at Seasons as well as tastings at the shop are vital to all wine consumers is what the winemakers bring to the table. They know the story. They know the story of the winery, the varietal, the vineyard and the vintage and communicate those headline points but also the nuanced details that make up the back story of every wine they make. It is through all of these details that they help us understand why we taste what we taste and why we like what we like. As wine professionals we do our absolute best to share with all consumers the same knowledge, but we will never know that “story” as well as the person that crafted it from vine to bottle.

There are more events on the books for this season of winemaker dinners and tastings before we take the month of July and August off from events as we do every year. You can find out what is coming by checking in at our website www.thedinnerpartyshop.com or you can stop by the shop and get added to our email list for all of our upcoming events, keeping in mind that many of our most popular events sell out to our wine club members prior to the invite going out to everyone.

Try to join us for one of the upcoming dinners or tasting, it remains the best way to find the wines you want most to drink.

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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 or visit www.thedinnerpartyshop.com.