"Wine Tasting Essentials" with Sommelier Dieter Schafer at Via Vita Cafe & Wine Bar

Learn how to taste wine knowledgeably and describe what you are tasting. In this 5-hour course, Certified Educator and Sommelier Dieter Schafer introduces you to wine types, grapes, varietals, and wine regions of the world, as well as the basics of reading a wine label. Gain hints for smart buying, proper storing and aging. Also included are wine-and-food pairing guidelines. Tasting each session. Must be at least 21 years of age to attend; id required. For details please go to www.Hospitality-and-Wine-Education.com . 
~ ~ ~
2 Mondays, June 4-June 11, 2012, 6:00-8:30 pm. Preregistration with credit card required 425-449-8917.
~ ~ ~
SEATTLE TIMES, May 18, 2012: Via Vita, A Euro cafe right at home in Bellevue. By Providence Cicero. Not long ago Jan Lawrence wore a hard hat to work. Now, as proprietor of Via Vita, she wanders from table-to-table at lunchtime in a chef's coat. At night she leaves the cooking to others "more creative" and dons a smart leather jacket to greet dinner guests… Her frequent travels inspired this Euro cafe and wine bar, "an Italian piazza filled with French furniture," housed in a glass-walled corner of Bellevue's Belcarra apartment building… By day, customers cluster at small round tables up front, where daylight pours through windows two-stories high. Larger tables are set farther back, amid honeyed walls hung with art. A curved wine bar rimmed by a curlicued railing becomes a hub in the evening, when cloths drape the stone tables and faux votives flicker in their wire and glass cages… 
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/restaurants/2018229356_cicero18.html