Results tagged “wine”

The fourth annual Sips & Shoes wine tasting and shoe auction is taking place this Sunday, November 8 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, with proceeds benefiting the Ryther Child Center. Try wines from over 30 Northwest wineries. Ogle shoe fashion displays. (No hot mingling firefighters like last year, however, boo!) Attendees are encouraged to dig in their closets for pairs of new or barely worn shoes to bring as a donation as well; later in the evening a raffle and live shoe auction will take place with all donated shoes: mo’ shoes, mo’ money for Rythers. Raffle prizes include a Grand Prize drawing for two tickets to the May 2010 American Idol Finale, Chef’s Dinner for four at El Gaucho and tickets to Teatro Zinzanni.

Not that we need an excuse to dine at any of Ethan Stowell's restaurants--hello, How to Cook a Wolf--but unloading our cork collection in the name of the environment and a newsworthy discount is as good as any. From November 1-December 31, pack your pockets and purses with corks to dine at any Ethan Stowell restaurant and receive one dollar off your check for every cork, up to 25.

Sounding more like a grocery store and less like a bottleshop F.T.B. boasts 600+ craft beers, 300+ wines, and more ciders than there are apples in a barrel. The 'shop avoids the pedestrian sticker among the hop'o'philes by providing weekly tastings, ‘repeat customer’ rewards punch cards and their Elephant ride situated against one wall.

Over in Bellevue, just a bit off the beaten path (really, just a bit) is a wine bar that's serving up some excellent sips and dishes in a contemporary, European atmosphere. Grand Cru Wine Shop & Bar anchors the Ten20 Tower (a luxury apartment complex), and is well worth seeking out.

              

Having had a peek inside, it's obvious that criticisms that the new "15th Ave Coffee & Tea," as the signage puts it, has ripped off its next-door neighbor Smith aren't going away any time soon. Woodblock print-style logo? Check. Long table of rough reclaimed wood? Check. Vaguely Western and/or rustic, farm-themed? Check.

SUMMER WINES TASTE SO FINE: South Seattle Community College's Northwest Wine Academy is celebrating the debut of the its newest prized 2008 vintages. During the school's Toast to Summer Wine Release Party, vino lovers of legal age can sample and purchase (in cases too!) the perfect summer pairings--created by the school's very own award-winning student winemakers--including an '08 Riesling, Rosé, Viognier, Barbera, and a new oaked Chardonnay.

    

They call it an Oyster Wine competition; after an elimination round followed by finals in three cities, 10 of the original 130 entries are left standing. It's really more of an oyster promotion, created some years back by seafood marketing guru Jon Rowley for Taylor Shellfish. No matter. The winning wines (5 from Washington, 3 from California, 2 from Oregon) will see an immediate increase in sales at oyster bars around the country.

Seattlest's wine guy, Ronald, kicks off the weekend by hosting a $75, 5-course, 5-wine wine dinner Friday at Portfolio, the dining room of the Art Institute's culinary academy. (Note: 20 percent discount to Seattlest readers; call 206-239-2363 for reservations.) Saturday night will find him, Barolo in hand, at Mitchelli's for a farewell toast to the venerable "Trat," closing later this month after 32 years in Pioneer Square.

New rules promulgated by the French Health Ministry, so help us, read: "The consumption of alcohol, and especially wine, is discouraged." This on the heels of a study by French national cancer institute, which says the consumption of even a small amount of alcohol can increase the risk of mouth and throat cancer by 168%. "Small daily doses of alcohol are the most harmful," the study's chief scientist told the press."There is no amount, however small, which is good for you." All this from the government of right-wing, non-drinking Nicolas Sarkozy, who campaigned on a promise to reduce the previous administration's harrassment of wine producers...and of editors who print stories that cast wine in a favorable light. The world is upside down. French paradox indeed.

He's an American journalist with street cred in two countries: a graduate of the School of Journalism at Columbia and founder of the alternative Fort Worth Weekly. Robert Camuto moved to the south of France 12 years ago (his wife is French), started a blog and began contributing to Wine Specator. And, of course, writing a book.

Kim is shooting from the hip this weekend (papow!). The only solid plan is her friend's weekly L Word watching party on Sunday. Between now and then, she'll probably go see Shenandoah Davis at 2020 Cycle with Your Heart Breaks and KHV. Maybe there'll be a delicious meal culled from our local farmers markets. Maybe she'll hop on a train and go to Portland. Anything could happen, people. Anything.

Wow! Today's Friday the twelfth, and that leaves you all of twelve shopping days till Christmas. Which sort of sucks, since you're probably a little nervous about the state of the economy and whatnot and thinking that maybe fattening up the old savings account is a wiser move than buying a new Wii Fit. But insofar as gifts are an unavoidable fact of the holidays, we here at Seattlest thought we'd offer you some clever gift ideas for the holidays with an emphasis on both your budget and what you can do to help grease the wheels of the local economy just a bit.

She may still have far too much work to do this weekend, but Kim will emerge from her cocoon for two very important shows. Tonight, it's Sera Cahoone at a secret, undisclosed location and Kim refuses to spill the beans. Continuing the vaguely country theme, she'll end the weekend Sunday night at Chop Suey with the lovely and talented Star Anna.

Dine-Arounds are popular in November; here's one more: the 16th annual Beaujolais Nouveau festival, sponsored by Seattle's French-American Chamber of Commerce. Used to be, the FACC counted on Beaujolais to raise a ton of cash, so they gussied up what's traditionally an informal country fair, turning it into a black tie event in a glittering hotel ballroom.

Saturday afternoon MvB is going to talk to a pack of Emerging Critics at the Seattle Rep--and hopefully avoid being panned--before heading to the Moore for Compagnie Heddy Maalem's version of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps. Sunday he's packing for Iceland. Warm socks, etc.

Kim is relieved the debate is actually going to happen. She'll be watching with friends tonight before working all weekend. Saturday, she'll take a break for a quiet night out, and then she'll close the weekend off getting funky in the balcony of Jazz Alley with Maceo.

Last night, Seattlest and friends—up for a light dinner and a few glasses of wine—discovered that West Seattle’s cozy, just-down-the-street Blackbird Bistro is, as of this week, shuttered. (No more half-price-bottle Tuesdays!) A note on the door and papered windows cited a sale of the curvy space and promised the new owners will not disappoint. (As usual, West Seattle Blog knew this was coming and we didn’t.) Of some consolation: The Bohemian, new on the California strip a few blocks south, offers decent $15 bottles of cab and merlot. Every day.

It's been no secret that the parent company of Chateau Ste. Michelle is UST, powerhouse of smokeless tobacco (Copenhagen, Skoal). Three decades ago those tobacco profits, looking for a safe haven, provided desperately-needed investment capital for the young Washington's wine industry. Seriously, Washington wine wouldn't exist if not for the enlightened owners of UST. But times change, and those enlightened owners have long since coughed their last. This week UST was sold to Altria, owners of Marlboro among other cigarette brands, for $10.4 billion. Industry observers say it's only a matter of time until Altria puts the entire Ste. Michelle wine division on the block. Your crack Seattlest news team is on the case (five million cases a year, actually), will report back.

Ah yes, we say, full of ignorant bravado, our wines are the best there is. World class, to coin a phrase. Well, reality check, folks: not this year. Over 9,000 wines from around the world were entered in the most prestigious competition of them all, the Decanter World Wine Awards, and the judges (also from around the world) narrowed them down by region, by grape variety and by price. Of the top two dozen, not a one from the United States. The winners: 6 each from South Africa, and France, 5 from Australia, 3 from Spain, 2 each from Italy, Portugal and Argentina, and one for Germany: the world's best pinot noir. Seriously.

No, we're not using that headline to get your attention. This is really a post about free beer and wine in grocery stores.

You can love hamburgers, go out of your way to eat them, even buy books about them, but nobody "collects" hamburgers or pretends you need an advanced degree in culinary science to "appreciate" them. Restaurants don't need a "burger master" with a fancy apron to expound on the subtleties of smoked bacon and cheddar. Nobody makes much of a fuss about the soil where the cows were raised.

There are times when we’re sick of Seattle. Sick of the bad and/or utter lack of fashion, sick of the terrible drivers and even worse pedestrians, and certainly sick of all the hipsters in Capitol Hill.

ART & TRAUMA: The Center on Contemporary Art in Ballard is kicking off its series of "After Dark" events with Slow Healing—a documentary/multi-media presentation about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned from the field with Traumatic Brian Injuri (TBI). There'll be a slideshow at 9 p.m., followed by Butoh dancing and SEA SHOW.

LIVE MUSIC: If you're looking to start your weekend a day early, why not head to the Showbox Downtown for Minus the Bear. Fresh off the hottness of Coachella, the band's back in town to rock you hard.

We humans are delusional; we think we have free will and immaculate perception. We don't rob Peter to pay Paul, we borrow from our friends so we can buy oil from our enemies. We turn our food supplies into even more fuel, and we'd grow yet more if only we could afford to import still more fertilizer from our neighbor to the north, even as we build a fence to keep out our neighbors from the south.

St. Germain has come marching into Belltown. Not the café from Madison Park, which closed earlier this year, but a French artisanal liqueur subtitled "Délice de Sureau," distilled from freshly picked elderflower blossoms. (The website, stgermain.fr, tells the story, probably aprocryphal, of a cohort of old men on bicycles gathering the flowers.)

He's Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head brewery; she's Marnie Old, director of wine studies at the French Culinary Institute. They've teamed up to write a warm-hearted, delightful book that tweaks the boy-girl, beer-wine stereotypes without dumbing things down.