Annual Wine Tasting Draws Crowd

After waiting patiently for a year Deerfield wine aficionados lined up at Worldwide Liquors for its annual International Wine Tasting on Saturday. This year's tasting featured 29 wines representing top growing regions from around the globe.

Sue Cho and her son Gabriel (Gabe) own Worldwide Liquors. "We bought the liquor store in 1995 when it was in the Deerfield Commons," Gabe Cho said. "We moved it here three years later. We've kept the same clientele as people like coming here because it is a family owned business."

"We know our customer's names and what they drink," Sue Cho added. "We've been doing this tasting since we bought the business."

Four tasting stations were set up with about eight wines available for sampling at each table. The tastings were facilitated by wine representatives from local importers and distributors.

Jason Blanford was at the event representing Vintage Wines, "I love wine because you can never know everything about it, there is always a new varietal, a new technique, or a new area coming out, and it walks the thin line between art and science," he said.

"It gets packed in here," Gabe Cho said. "With people sampling, talking and comparing notes with their friends and having fun with the wine reps. It is all about the people and what they like."

Chris Derfler and his wife Iris not only attended the event but walked away with an assortment of wines to enjoy later at home. "It's out local store and we live six blocks from here," Derfler said. "We've been coming here for seven years. They have a couple of great Petite Syrahs here that we like."

"I love the Avinyo Cava, a sparkling wine from the Basque region in Spain," Iris Derfler added.

Molly Wolfe and her friend Cindy Tardif are also big fans of Worldwide Liquors. "My favorite on the high end was the La Crema Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley in California," Tardif said. "We love this event because you get to taste wines you would probably never try otherwise."

"We both loved the Chereau Carre Muscadet," Wolfe said. "It was delicious, very different and it goes great with turkey. I'm definitely buying this for Thanksgiving."

"I learned today that what grows together, goes together," Tardif said.  "Food that comes from the same region as the wine usually goes well with that wine. We both went to the Loire Valley in France and it was really cool to taste wines today from places that we had visited."