Ms. Cory D’Addario, Wine Maven of Liquor Locker, along with proprietor Harvey Skolnick and partner Seth Sholes, will be your hosts at Westport Sunrise Rotary’s 25th Annual Wine Tasting on Friday evening, October 24th at Christ & Holy Trinity Church.
Ms. D’Addario is a Culinary Institute of America trained chef and pastry maker who met her husband by sharing a chopping block at the school. D’Addario began cooking professionally at 19, and before coming to the wine industry ran the back and front of restaurants.
Today she lives in a different food universe than you and I. “I know what my family will have for dinner at 8:30 in the morning because that’s when I cook.” And I can’t imagine even a midweek family dinner without a great bottle of wine.
Talking about the Wine Tasting, D’Addario said “Wines tell a story,” and she is creating one for the Sunrise Rotary event.
Guests will be greeted by ten tables, which, together, will afford a “global experience.” Each table will offer six wines, each unique in its category, and including a “value wine” and a “show stopper” at every table.
Each table will be stocked and manned by a different distributor whose representatives are there to help you enjoy their samplings.
Follow her story from “light, feminine, wines,” starting with a champagne at the first table, progressing through “elegant light reds” at the third, a selection of Italians at table seven, and finishing with "bold and masculine” ports and dessert wins at the tenth. D’Addario suggests sipping eight or ten wines, freshening your palate, then returning to the tasting.
Please, she advises (actually, more than advises), don’t start at table ten or jump around.
She added that guests will taste Fall wines - those between the light picnicking wines of summer and fuller, richer winter libations - wines meant to be paired with sautéd and braised dishes, or with roasts, and accompanied by harvest vegetables.
Sustainable viticulture uses organics and is something of a baseline, more a commitment by a grower and vintner than an adherence to certifiable standards. An organic producer must have his product certified by a recognized agency, and biodynamic producers employ a complex and specific regimen of soil conditioning that must meet a stringent certification.
Ms. D’Addario added that these practices are often a change from conventional practice in this country, though they have been a part of standard practice in much of Europe for years, if not generations.
While wines are the stars, D’Addario is also selecting two tables of beers, “from small artisan brewers… beers you haven’t tasted,” most of them imports. Thank you, Cory.
Let me suggest that if you are looking for the wine merchant who knows her stuff, who will greet you like friend and use adjectives you’ve never heard to describe her wines - “focused,” “lower viscosity,” even “crazy beautiful,” and "my refrigerator wine,” Liquor Locker’s Cory D’Addario is ready to help you make your next party a success just as she can help the avid collector select that next investment.