My Wine and More Wine Weekend

Raise your glass if you partied like a rock star this weekend! Woo-Hoo! There was absolutely no shortage of great events in Paducah over the past few days. I was able to wind — geeze, make that wine — my way through quite a few of them. The Carson Center's Wine Tasting & Auction, was, as usual, fantastic. Above, that's me, Robyn Shapiro, lucky David Boggs, iDate of the Week Lisa Guill and Jill Chambers. We spent quite a bit of time in this very location — arm's length from the bar — before making our way to the fabulous food purveyors… ...auction items… ...and the very handsome Anton Pestun of Robert Mondovi Winery — isn't he darling? More on him in a minute. Look how cute everyone was: These are all Bill Fox photos. See all of them here! I was especially excited about the Vintner's Luncheon the next day. The whole idea of sanctioned and tax-deductible wine for lunch — I mean, come on! Why aren't we doing this more often? Here's Anton, telling us about the wines.... And a few of the gals at the iList Paducah table, enjoying the wines... My beautiful mother-in-law Pat Brockenborough... Isn't she the best? The Vintner's Luncheon was in the beautiful Myre River Room at the Carson Center. Within seconds of walking through the s door, lovely volunteers were there to fill your glass. Multiple times. The catering was done by Artisan Kitchen and absolutely perfect. Debbie Wattier (we call her our Godmother of iList Paducah because she helped inspire the idea for our Web site) did a fantastic job of welcoming everyone. The above photos also belong to the fabulous Bill Fox. See more of them here. OK, back to Anton. When we found out that he is, indeed, single, we organized an impromptu post-Vintner's Luncheon iDate of the Week group interview. Several of us convened at Robyn's new second floor office above her René Advertising headquarters on Kentucky Avenue, right across from the Carson Center, with Anton and, because we just hadn't had quite enough, a few additional bottles of wine. Anton was a great sport, and I don't want to give too much away about the interview, but here's the famous toast that he gave at the lunch: "To the finer things in life, may we enjoy them all in moderation with a few glorious exceptions among family and friends." Friday would most definitely fall under that exceptions category! Look for our fun interview with him on iList Paducah this Wednesday. Congratulations, Carson Center! Well done! And thanks, Bill Fox, for the photos!

---