Burning River Fest Winner and French Wines

Thank you to everyone that entered the ticket giveaway for this weekend's Great Lakes Burning River Fest. The random winner is...Andrea Fox! Please check your email, and respond by tomorrow at 10AM to claim your tickets, or another winner will be selected.

Tickets are still available for $15. Come join me at the Coast Guard Station for a night of craft beer, live music, amazing views of Lake Erie and Downtown Cleveland, chef demos, and more.

I also wanted to share with you today a fun event that I attended last week at Heinen's. Their wine buyer recently traveled to France. After sampling more than 400 wines in one week's time (tough job!), he selected 20- 30 varietals to add to the Heinen's wine department.

This included wines from Jean-Baptiste Bejot, which a group of us were able to sample last week. They are the third largest wine producer in Burgundy, and Carlo Benoit Valery from Bejot Vins & Terroir Winery was here all the way from France to present the wines, and to share all kinds of information and history with us. His accent was as intoxicating as the wine.

Paired with some fabulous cheeses from the Heinen's cheese department, it was quite an educational and tasty experience.

All six of the wines sampled paired well with food, and allow the food to be the star of any meal. Heinen's goal is to dust off the image of French wines, and to make them more approachable again. The price points on this wine will be drastically lower than the market average. We picked up a $100 bottle for $59.99.

We were hosting a dinner party on Saturday, and serving up a 2.25" thick Porterhouse steak that was begging for a quality red wine to pair with it. Mr. H and I both loved the Dom Margueite Carillon Corton Grand Cru - Les Marechaudes. I have to say, it was a winner on Saturday. I wish that I had photographic proof, but we were just having too much fun with our friends!

Look for these new wines starting this week. They'll be featured on end caps in the wine department, and then they'll be integrated into the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir sections.

I love finding new wines that we enjoy. What's your favorite go-to bottle? 

Disclosure: I was invited to attend the wine tasting with a guest, and we were each provided with a French-themed gift bag and a $25 Heinen's gift card, in exchange for sharing our experience. All opinions are 100% my own, and we'll continue to purchase the wine that we sampled. It truly was very good!