Bloomingdale's Wine Tasting

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Bloomingdale's at South Coast Plaza had a "Savvy Summer Style" event tonight. Billed at a wine & food pairing with an "entertaining" segment. It was $25 and seating was limited. I estimated that there 50 people in attendance. I arrived with just 5 minutes to spare. Almost 1-1/2 hour to get there from my work. I encountered fire trucks, paramedics, overturned cars, looky loo traffic etc., going down the freeway. When I turned into the parking lot at South Coast I encountered, fire truck, paramedics and an accident. Just wasn't my day.

My friend Margie had saved me a seat at the table. I will say the setting was nice. The organization of the event left an awful lot to be desired. A "celebrity event stylist" was there to tell us how to give parties. You can tell her clients have money. I don't spend that much in a year for events at my house much less one event.

The winery tonight was "St. Francis" from Sonoma. These are middle of the road wines by they are quite acceptable drinking. They did a food pairing with the wines. The first was 2006 Chardonnay which did go well with the salad because it had bacon and cheese in it. The next two wines were a Merlot and Cab which they paired with a piece of beef on a soggy round of bread.

The fourth wine was the winner of the evening, 2005 "Old Vines" Zinfandel. The vines are 128 years old. This was a big fruit bomb and balanced well. Unfortunately they served this with a Chinese Chicken Salad, what can I say. Chocolate would have been more appropriate.

I did talk with one of the Bloomie's employees that seemed to be somewhat in charge and Chris Silva from St. Francis Winery about the wine and food pairing. They did not bring out bread until half way through the tasting. I've never been bashful when it comes to stating my opinion and I will say that they seemed very interested in what I had to say.

Margie & I were paired up with 2 other females. Neither had much going for them upstairs. I would say that 90% of the people attending knew nothing about wine and really were not interested in learning anything. They were there to eat and drink and be seen.

We did receive a $25 gift card from Bloomingdales which made the tasting free. Now I just have to find something that is $25 at Bloomie's.