Dear <<First Name>>,

The holidays mean rich, hearty meals – turkey roasted to a golden brown perfection … buttery side dishes, fresh greens and autumn berries, spiced pumpkin, caramelized onions, and sautéed garlic perfuming the whole room. Even before you take your first bite – you’re in heaven.

This season, I decided to take the familiar sights, smells, and tastes of the holidays to a higher, gourmet level, and offer them to a very select list of our closest Fort Collins neighbors, including you. I wanted to give you the first chance to join us before we send out invitations to a wider audience and our reservation book fills up. I’m so excited about the food we have for you –

Menu Choice 1:

Roasted Turkey Breast with Balsamic & Pearl Onion Gastrique

Creamed Spinach with Fine Herbs & Nutmeg

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Orange Crème Anglaise

Garden-Herb Stuffing

 

Menu Choice 2:

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Fresh Green Beans & Garlic Sauté

Mocha Walnut Fudge Cake with Mixed Berry Compote

Garden-Herb Stuffing

 

The food will be exceptional, but at Vintages Handcrafted Wines, there is always more:

• An intimate, fun evening with your personal wine guides. Sommelier Paul Vandertop and the winemaker (that’s me) bring nearly half a century of wine expertise to the table each night.
• You’ll discover the secrets of wine pairings with heartier holiday fare as we guide you through the entire meal with a rich selection of wines perfectly paired with each dish, so that you’ll be able to pick the right wines for your next feast.

 

Now, about the wines …

Choosing the right wine for a feast like this with so many different tastes on the menu can be daunting for the average wine enthusiast. Serve too full-bodied of a wine, and you’ll feel weighed down before you even finish the first dish. Serve too sharp of a wine, and it can fight with the food like a sip of orange juice after you just brushed your teeth.

So, we’ve made it easier than ever for you to discover your favorite food-wine combinations by pairing each dish with the ideal wine companion. For example, you’ll explore …

… how the sweet-and-sour gastrique of the Roast Turkey Breast will come alive with the aromatic, bright taste of our Gewürztraminer with its citrus body and slight edge of minerality …

… why the fruit and butter essence of our Oaked Chardonnay smooths out the boldness of the Chicken Cordon Bleu …

… and the way that the flight of Chocolate Raspberry dessert wine adds to the dark richness of the Mocha Cake, while balancing out its powerful sweetness.

 

An Intimate, One-of-a-Kind Evening

You will not find anyone else in all of Northern Colorado who can give you a night like this. Instead of finding a packed and noisy restaurant or bar, you’ll find me or one of our wine stewards waiting to personally greet you and escort you to our cozy dining and wine-tasting table where you can enjoy your meal with no more than 6 couples at a time while sampling our micro-batch, handcrafted wines.

Our customers enjoy the entertaining insights from the staff as much as they do the wine and food. Here are just a few of the thousand-plus positive comments we’ve received over the years:

“Loved learning more about pairing” – Jessica D.

“Paul, he is great at explaining the wines and what they go with – Char H.

“It was fun and laid back but informative” – Ryan E.

“I like how unpretentious the service was. Open, honest and clear” – Megan J.

 

We limit seating to just 12 guests at a time so you can make it an even more personalized event by filling the room with your best friends or favorite relatives by booking the whole room for the night. But even if you come as just one couple, you’ll meet other neighbors and make new friends who share your love for fine food, wine, and adventure.

We will only be offering our Winemaker’s Hearty Holiday Wine-Pairing Feast through the first week of January, and we usually only offer two seatings a night. Reservations usually fill up in about 2-3 weeks, though, so please call to make your Reservations at (970) 484-9813 and use this Reservation Code: DM120. But before you call, I want you to know exactly where I’m coming from …

From My Family to Yours …

My family comes from the remote Abruzzi region of Italy between the mountainous spine of the country and the Adriatic coast. While I grew up here in North America, I was raised with an Old-World family tradition in which wine is never an after-thought to the meal, but is always an integral decision for turning every meal into a celebration.

Raised in the largest Italian community outside of Italy … Toronto, Canada, I’ve spent 35 years perfecting the methods of my family heritage by hand-crafting small, personally selected batches of wine that are perfectly paired with the menu of the day … and blended for your personal palate.

The wine blending and pairing tradition that began for me in my mama’s kitchen as she prepared the freshest, most delicious gnocchi, lasagna, salad, and maccheroni alla chittara continues today with our fun and festive approach to food and wine at Vintages.

Your Wine, Your Taste, Your Way

In my family and in my tasting room, wine is never stuffy or snobbish. My aim is to help you discover your favorite flavors, your own personal taste – whether it’s a crisp, tropical-fruity Pinot Grigio white or a full-bodied, oaky, rich Cabernet Sauvignon red. That’s the approach to wine that I learned in the kitchens of my Italian aunts and uncles, friends, parents and grandparents – and that’s the experience we recreate for you nightly at Vintages Handcrafted Wines.

Holiday Takeaway Ideas

If you’re like me, you can’t think about the Holidays without thinking about family. The Holidays are upon us, and along with warm feelings of holiday sharing, there is a nagging question that pops up (even for the most prepared of us) – What do I get them for the holidays?

Of course, the only answer you can usually get out of them – especially if you’re trying to get a little something for the person who has everything – is this: “Something personal, please!” If you’re a husband or boyfriend, you are even more likely to have felt the frustration of that answer. And if you’ve ever given that answer yourself, then you’re familiar with the pained look on his (or her) face after you give it. Am I right?

 

At Vintages, we have answers that go right to the heart of personal gift giving. Not only can you experience an intimate dining and wine evening with the one you love and/or a group of friends, but a night with us can also provide you with these possible solutions to your gift-giving challenges …

 

• Give our Hearty Holiday Wine-Pairing Feast as a gift. We’ll even provide you with a gift announcement card to put in his or her hand on Christmas morning or on a Chanukah evening to show your love and dedication.
• Make it an even more personal night by booking the room and filling it with your closest friends and favorite relatives.
• At the end of the meal, you’ll also receive a $20 gift card towards the purchase of a case of wine from Vintages. You can either give that gift card to someone else or …
• Use it towards a case of your spouse’s or friend’s favorite wine from the tasting so that the gift of one evening can keep giving for many nights to come as you both enjoy 12 bottles of personally selected and hand crafted wine.

Check, Please!

Now, you are probably thinking that a night like this will be extremely expensive. A small intimate setting … a personal wine steward taking care of you and your guest(s) for the evening … gourmet cuisine for the heartiest of appetites … 7 pours of wine 2-3 ounces at a time (easily a whole bottle’s worth of wine per couple by the end of the evening) … and a $20 gift certificate towards a case of handcrafted wine that you or your guest likes best.

You won’t find an experience like this this side of Napa Valley, but our price is not what makes it such an exclusive invitation. Come feast with us for $59.99 per couple.

 

That’s right! You get a feast of a holiday meal … 7 pours of a rich variety of wines Per Person … and an entertaining, intimate evening for about the price of a tank of gas. A crude comparison, I know, but I guarantee that you will get more mileage out of the memories that you create with us, than you will with a tank of 87 octane – unless, of course, you use that gas to drive to Vintages this season.

 

Your absolute satisfaction is of the utmost importance to us, and we can’t wait to serve you. Remember, reservations are easy. Simply call us at (970) 484-9813 and use Reservation Code DM120.

 

Cheers!

Lino Di Filice