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July 25, 2009 Blending Seminar

The guests were invited to participate in the inaugural event of the Le Mistral Wine Club.  Attendees are part of the exclusive "Founders Club," created when the Le Mistral vineyard became an independent vineyard in 2008. The host venue, Chateau Coralini on River Road in Salinas, opened its doors for the class, along with a champagne reception and a wine dinner featuring local celebrity chef Wendy Brodie. 

Guests made blends featuring various lots of Grenache and Syrah from the Le Mistral Vineyard. Winemaker Reggie Hammond explains, “The Le Mistral vineyard in south Monterey County produces the finest expression of Rhone-style wine in America. We created an opportunity to show some of our club members the art behind working with these amazing grapes.” Reggie taught the students about each of the blending wines, walking them through a tasting of the different components. Then each guest crafted their own creation, filling a custom Le Mistral wine bottle with their own blend, labeling the bottle and corking it to take home.

After finishing their blends, guests were invited down into the cellar for a five star, five course wine dinner. The menu featured Wendy Brodie creations such as coffee rubbed tenderloin in Le Mistral wine sauce and rainbow carrot soup with truffle oil. The chef and the winemaker took time between each course to explain the inspiration and components of each food and wine pairing. Wendy Brodie is the host of the TV show The Art of Food, has been executive chef for several world class resorts, and has traveled and cooked with numerous celebrity chefs such as Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Roy Yamaguchi, Paul Prudhomme and Martha Stewart. See Complete Menu including Blending Wines


"The food, the wine pairing, the location, and the wine blending exercise, as well as the treatment we received from our hosts, exceeded my expectations, which were high!” Said guest Larry Walker of Pacific Grove. “It is a real pleasure to get know the people behind the scenes and to be able to participate in these events right in our backyard."  Event Coordinator, Barbara Pluth wanted to provide the new club members with something unique and special. “We know they are serious wine lovers,” she said “so we tried to show them the best of Monterey County Wine Country.” 


Founding Members Art and Joyce Appling send in this review:
"Wow, what an event! We had an absolutely wonderful evening at the wine blending seminar and wine dinner. Believe me, as Sonoma County residents who have been to many winery dinners and events, yours topped our list.

The Chateau Coralini is a beautiful setting. I'm sure the proprietor will be seeing many of the wine club members as her guests when we visit Monterey County in the future.

Chef Wendy Brodie and her team put together a spectacular and creative dinner that paired perfectly with the Le Mistral wines being served. We certainly hope she enjoyed doing this event as much as we enjoyed her efforts.

We found wine maker, Reggie Hammond, both entertaining and enlightening with his wine blending seminar. What a great way to meet other club members as we compared our blends, and of course coming home with a bottle of our own blend makes the memory more lasting. I'm wondering how long I'll look at that bottle before opening and seeing if it is as good as originally contemplated.

Thank you again and we look forward to the upcoming October event and future visits to enjoy our Le Mistral membership."