Grocer, downtown eatery pair to offer wine-tasting event
KALAMAZOO -- Supermarkets generally haven't been in the business of offering wine tastings, but times are changing now that they have hundreds of wines to sell.
D&W Fresh Markets recently arranged for Charlie Foster's restaurant to throw a joint wine tasting, ``25 Wines for $25,'' at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the restaurant, 211 E. Water St., Kalamazoo.
``We want to continue to educate customers about wines,'' said Bill Michaels, manager of the D&W Fresh Market at 2103 Parkview Ave. ``With this, we're trying to choose wines that are reasonably priced, those that can be everyday wines for customers.''
D&W Fresh Markets in Grand Haven and Rockford have successfully conducted sit-down wine tastings, and those events gave Brandon Walsh, now director of a newly opened D&W store in Hastings, and D&W wine specialist Penny Ross the idea to try something similar in Kalamazoo.
Their version at Charlie Foster's will be a walk-around event. Five tables will offer samples of five wines. Each table will carry a theme such as ``Not Your Usual Whites'' or ``Wines from Below the Equator.''
Each D&W Fresh Market store now carries about 450 wines and has an area called Bin 35 that features 35 wines costing less than $10.
The wine tasting is being offered in part to spread the word about the supermarket chain's wine deals -- 10 percent discounts on purchases of six bottles or more and periodic discounts of 15 percent and 20 percent on six bottles or more. Customers can also order bottles of wine and receive those discounts.
At the wine tasting, Charlie Foster's will provide a buffet table to introduce patrons to Chef Allen Worman's style. He'll showcase his Caprice Salad, Cajun-crusted calamari, Moroccan-spiced scallops, Thai chili shrimp, rosemary-grilled mussels, tempura salmon, portabella-mushroom skewers and tomato-and-goat-cheese fondue.
Other wine news
v Salut Fine Wines & Spirits, 5907 Gull Road, will offer a tasting of European wines from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 20 at the Park Club, 219 W. South St. Wines from Greece, Spain, France and Italy will be tasted. Tickets are $25. Space is limited. Call Salut at 343-2620.
v Tiffany's Spirit Shoppe, 1714 W. Main St., expects to get 75 more cases of its wine of the year, Mas des Chimeres, sometime next week, owner Habib Mandwee said. The store originally had 225 cases, and Mandwee thought it would last for the holidays, but the bottles were either gone or reserved for customers by Dec. 20. For more information, call 381-1414.
v Dottie Meyer-Hill, general manager of the Black Swan Restaurant, 3501 Greenleaf Blvd., is now a certified wine specialist. She took an online course in wine education through the Gallo Wine Academy and recently completed a final exam in Columbus that tested her knowledge of wine regions of the world, wine-and-food pairing, grape varieties, the history of wine and growth cycles of wine grapes.
-- William R. Wood,