It's Holiday Party Time
Champagne, Port, Salty's Cuisine on the List

By Kathy Ward

Make that list, check it twice: Wine, Food, Friends, Fun. Put yourself on it too, and mark December 13 as the date to treat your palate to Champagne, Ports and an array of complementing foods. It's that festive time of year so get ready for the annual Enological Society Holiday Party.

There'll be sparkling wine to pop your cork, Ports to warm your heart. And Salty's is on the menu, as well as international cheeses and Boehm's chocolates. It's your party, so come celebrate the season and take home ideas for your own festivities.

Remember that argument as to whether the new millennium has really started yet? Well, even if you celebrated year 2000 with much gusto, just to be certain you did it right perhaps you ought to check out our new bubblies for the New Year's celebration this year.

"If you like Champagne, you're full of fun and love the festive," says Parade magazine in a recent whimsical observation on what favorite wines say about a person. They add, "If you don't like Champagne, you don't know what you're missing."

So don't miss these sparklers we're pouring:

• Nicolas Feuillatte, main brand of the largest Champagne cooperative in France, tells us they are inspired by tradition, modern-day practices and a passion for the finer things in life to create wines "with the sensual power to remind us that our pleasures and emotions need not age."
• Duetz, one of Champagne's smallest grand marque houses, was founded by Prussian immigrants in 1893. Now owned by Louis Roederer, they retain their own management and house style and source nearly half of production from their own vineyards in Aÿ, France.
• Saint-Hilaire is a name that honors monks who first created a sparkling wine in Limoux in 1554. Yes, this predates the Dom Pérignon "I am drinking stars" Champagne connection by a hundred years, presumably making Saint-Hilaire the world's oldest bubbly producer.
• Roederer Estate, described as a touch of France in the rustic Anderson Valley a hundred miles north of San Francisco, enjoys a cool climate similar to the Champagne region. This was a main feature that attracted the French wine producer to our West Coast to make classic methode champenoise sparkling wines.
• Schramsberg produces several varieties of sparkling wines in the traditional methode champenoise style. Mirabelle is a cuvée of hand-harvested grapes from Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties.
• Discovery, first release of Oregon producer Domaine Meriwether, is crafted in classic French tradition from Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. Founder is Jack Bagdade, original owner of Pike and Western Wine Merchants. Winemaker is Champagne, France, native Jean-Louise Denois, from a Marne River Valley premier crus village who brings to the craft five generations of family experience.
• A special sampler table of Northwest sparkling wines collected by the Enological Society will provide a variety of additional styles and flavors for the tasting card.

Ports and Dessert

A sweet wine fortified with brandy during fermentation, Port is the quintessential dessert and an ideal fireside sipper. Born out of a long history of political and geographic obstacles in Portugal's Douro Valley, Port wine today is developing a legion of New World devotees.

Churchill's, a family-owned Port company established in 1981 by John Graham following his departure from Cockburn's, is the first British independent port wine house in more than fifty years. They produce all wines from Grade A vineyards.

Wine writer Robert M. Parker says that "Churchill has established an impeccable reputation for superb quality." He describes the Ten-Year-Old Tawny as "Unquestionably the finest Tawny I've tasted in years." Wine Enthusiast calls the 1994 Late Bottled Vintage "classy and rich." The Wine Spectator says of Churchill's Finest Vintage Character: "A Vintage Character which gives you just that."

To sample with the Churchill's Ports will be a Boehm's assortment of fine chocolates made at their charming Edelweiss chalet in Issaquah. Since 1956, the company started by Austrian Julius Boehm has been making melt-in-your-mouth hand-dipped European style chocolate confections using no preservatives or waxes. On our tasting card is their original truffle with a chocolate center surrounded by bitter chocolate, a semi-sweet chocolate molded into a grape cluster, and a flower-shaped bitter chocolate.

The Peterson Company, local importer of fine table cheeses, has selected varieties to accompany the wines. This includes dessert. Remember the blue-veined delicacy that complimented the Port so well last year? Others, too.

To finish the evening, Millstone Coffee invites you to "Taste What's Out There." The language of wine is the language of coffee, they tell us - full-bodied, complex, hints of spiciness. Also, flavors of both are determined by soil, temperature, rain and sun. Think about the similarities as you sip a steamy one for the road.

Salty's Ready to Party

Salty's on Alki has a new executive chef and new fall menu for our Holiday Party. Moving up from sous chef in July is Byron Shultz, who has been a chef-in-the-making since his childhood in California. He first pursued a career in Public Health, then enrolled in the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, graduating with high honors and a strong connection to the French philosophy and techniques of cooking.

Byron moved to Seattle in 1997 and took a position as sous chef under James Beard award-winning Chef Thierry Rautureau of Rover's in Madison Valley. He also has worked at Virazon, and joined Salty's last year.

Next May, Byron will venture to Alaska where he will cook Copper River salmon on the beach for the winner of a Salty's "First to Feast" contest. If you'd like to be flown to Alaska for a unique five-day adventure and be first in the world to eat Copper River salmon next year, come up with five good reasons why you believe you should win. The competition starts with a look at the saltys.com Web site. Hurry, finalists to be chosen by January 2.

And then you've just got to check out Salty's CircleView tour at http://saltysalki.citysearch.com. Go on, get that mouse working on the "navigate" button for a panoramic view up, down, and all around the famous Alki waterfront restaurant. It's a trip!

So, let's look at that list one more time: Wine, Food, Friends, Fun and You - check it out December 13 at the St. Demetrios Cultural Center in Seattle. Doors open at 7 p.m. and pouring begins at 7:30. Reservations are not necessary. The cost is $15 for members, $20 for guests. An admission ticket puts you in the drawing for some swell door prizes, including brunch, lunch and dinner at Salty's.

Bring a tasting glass. Logo glasses and plastic trays will be available for sale. New members who join the Enological Society for the first time the night of the program get a free wineglass.