February Bubbles with Sparkling Specifics
and Lynn’s Bistro

By Kathy Ward

Tasting Card

From bubble basics to a taste tutorial, the February program will cover all you’ve yearned to know about sparkling wines. Instructing will be the knowledgeable Dieter Schafer. He brings 40 years of professional food and wine experience on four continents — and most impressive credentials — to this event. Planning a complementing Lynn’s Bistro menu is Chef My Linh Tran.

“The more you know about the particulars of sparkling wine and Champagne, the better you enjoy it,” says Dieter, whose titles include Maître d’Hôtel, Sommelier, Banquet Manager, Food & Beverage Director, and Certified Educator.

Do you swirl and sniff as with a still wine, or are other techniques used to taste a sparkling wine? We’ll learn. Our tasting card includes examples from five different regions. Dieter will cover a brief history of Champagne, how to read labels, different styles with variations on dryness, as well as glassware, foods and occasions appropriate for sparkling hospitality.

Dieter also will entertain with anecdotal accounts from his global career. For example, as an Enological Society member since 1991, he used monthly mailings of Enographic issues as a teaching tool in hotel and restaurant management classes for three years at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. And training trips to wineries while working at L’Etoile, Alexis and The Bankers Club in San Francisco gave him an early look at California sparkling producers such as Chandon who have partnered with French Champagne houses.

Since returning to Seattle in 1995, Dieter has served as an instructor at the Art Institute School of Culinary Arts, and as Maître d’Hôtel for the Rainier Club and currently at Mistral Restaurant. He also trains other restaurant employees in the fine points of service. On the other side of the table, he teaches popular etiquette seminars for restaurant patrons and conducts wine classes for consumers and professionals.

Dieter is a member of the Washington Restaurant Association, Society of Wine Educators, Hotel & Catering International Management Association, and serves on the Board of L’Alliance Française de Seattle. He also belongs to the prestigious Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs and L’Ordre Mondial des Gourmets Dégustateurs, writing for their national publications Gastronome and L’Ordre Express. Learn more about his work at Hospitality-and-Wine-Education.

Successful Adventure
Lynn’s Bistro, a 30-seat French restaurant, features a menu assembled from My Linh’s varied cultural experiences. Born in Vietnam of Chinese parents, she left the country in 1978 and spent time in a Malaysian refugee camp before arriving in Seattle two years later. She worked as a prep cook at Crepe de Paris and trained at Dominique’s Place before moving on to Texas.

It was a move up to head chef at Lavana Moon in New York that brought critical acclaim and her creations featured on magazine covers. She also attended the French Culinary School in New York where she not only studied, but taught as well.

Returning to Seattle in 1991, again at Crepe de Paris, she worked as head chef for eight years before starting her own catering business. Her newly opened Lynn’s Bistro began as simple French fare but an Asian heritage, Texan techniques and flavors, and Jewish kitchens with a hint of Northwest have all meshed for a complexity of flavors.

This eclectic food pairing with sparkling wines was held February 13, 2002, at the St. Demetrios Cultural Center in Seattle.

Click here to see a list of past Seattle Programs