Mindy and I were invited to attend the Sparkling Wine 101 event at the Waterfront Seafood Grill.  I have never been to a sparkling wine event so I was excited. This was our second experience at the Waterfront Grill (click here for the link from our first trip) and it was amazing.

I’m not a huge fan of wine only because I think the scene as a whole is very snobby.  Everytime I try to have a conversation with someone about wine they turn it into a complete and utter snooze fest for me.  Can we just stop talking and get to drinking already?  That’s great, you’ve been to wine places all over and have studied this or that wine region in California, Spain, France, and Washington.  Cool, you know more than me about wine and have spent way too much time/money proving your genius to open a bottle and drink it…..stop acting like you made the stuff yourself.  Yikes!  You can see I was a little hesitant to go to a wine event at such a nice restaurant….I was expecting all these things to happen but once again the crew at the Waterfront is better than that.

We sat down at our table and they started pouring wines but there were unexpected food pairings.  Truffle oil and cayenne pepper popcorn!

“Wine #3 from the Willamette Valley would be great served with fried chicken”.  I looked over at Mindy and said, “we’re going to buy a bottle of this stuff and go to Ezell’s (my favorite fried chicken place in Seattle).  I love fried chicken more than you could ever possibly know and now that I have a lovely wine pairing to go along with it I am now on cloud nine.

#2 (from the right) goes well with butter sauces.  I LOVE BUTTER SAUCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is all the information I wasn’t expecting to hear. I was expecting the same song and dance but this was not the snobbery I was accustomed to.  I wanted to hate wine but I think the Waterfront Seafood Grill is making me love it.

Then this happened and I was sold.

“Champagne is not vegan, fish bladders and/or egg whites are used in the process to make them”.   Hey vegans, here is another thing you can’t have.  I think the next time I meet someone who is vegan I’m going to say this right off the bat.   “Hi, my name is Winter and I’m vegan”.  Hi, my name is Eric and I would like to let you know that champagne isn’t vegan. Then I’m going to make a popping champagne noise and run away into the night……Yup, I have a champagne costume I’m going to wear that says “Champagne Rules” and on the back its going to say “Stay away from me vegans….scary fish bladders and egg whites, OH MY”.  I’m so happy I don’t have a lot of money to pull off stupid things like this……

As the event was wrapping up we were told there would be another event happening in the spring or summer that would involve teaching the class how to open the bottles with a saber. I.AM.SO.IN!!!  What’s better than champagne? CHAMPAGNE WITH SABERS!!!  I just want to learn how to do it with my chef knife so I can reach ultra epic status.

Oh Waterfront Grill, you have made a believer out of me.   Sabers, fried chicken, butter sauces, and vegan repellent. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to sign up for their champagne saber class or see what other events they have planned then check out their site (click)

Eric