Super Tuscan Wine Tasting & Name the Puppy Contest!

Tonight we hosted the PONCHO and PNB Super Tuscan Wine Tasting Party at our home. All day we couldn’t decide whether to set up the party indoors or outside (20% chance of rain and pouring this morning at my house!). Our co-host, Dan Heidt (who organizes this auction party opportunity each year with me), promised sunshine so ultimately we did set up outdoors and it turned out to be a great decision since the sun came out and we had a very pleasant evening.

Hans Miller, Michael & Patti Brustkern

Guests purchased individual spaces for the party at the PONCHO Wine Auction which included Super Tuscan wines for tasting and beautiful small bites from Jonathan Sundstrom of Lark. The food was incredible and included slightly frozen foie gras bon bons with white peach coulis and aged balsamic vinegar; ricotta cheese, heirloom tomato, and mint crostini; lobster mushroom soup with toasted garlic; grilled wild boar sausage with rosemary and olives; marinated octopus with peppers and oregano; eggplant caponata crostini with basil; and Fiore Sardo Wagyu skirt steak crostini with blue cheese, arugula, and sweet onion jam. Dessert was a petite vanilla bean panna cotta with red wine blackberries and lavender shortbread crumbles atop. Every bite was absolutely amazing!

Lisa Rongren, Christopher Chan, Peggy Reddy

Lisa Rongren, from John Howie Steak, was the sommelier this year and did a fantastic job of explaining the individual wines and keeping us on track with the tasting. We tasted nine Super Tuscan wines and my favorite was the Sassicaia, considered one of Italy’s top Bordeaux-style red wines.

Michael & Peggy Swistak

Cathi, Z-Puppy, Dan Heidt

Randy Houtz, Z-Puppy

We are puppy sitting for the week (with an option to purchase!) and the guests took turns passing the puppy around and cuddling her. She seemed to be enjoying the whole party from start to finish. I decided that we should have a “Name the Puppy” contest and several guests suggested potential monikers. The contest rules are that the name should either start with the letter “z” or the sound of the letter “z” (i.e. Czarina would qualify). She will be coming to the ZINO Society office each day and her title will be “Z-Puppy”. If you send in the winning name (I am the primary judge but will include Ken and the Z-Team in the selection decision), you will receive a fabulous prize (yet to be determined!). Please send in your names soon so we can name the currently “nameless Z-Puppy”!