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Business & Tech

Olde Wine Store Hosts Musical Duo

The Olde Wine Store has an event for every day of the week to help bring people with a love of vino and a love of music together

Though the skies above Mercer Island were filled with cold, sleeting rain on Tuesday, inside the Olde Wine Store, it was warm and sultry, with Latin American rhythms and harmonies from musical duo Correo Aereo and red Spanish wine Finca Resalso that tasted of spices and sun-ripened fruit.

“We’re doing this to bring a nightlife (to downtown), to have something besides television to turn to in the evening,” said Zachariah Weissman, wine steward and event organizer for the Olde Wine Store. “You have to appreciate the beauty of good music and good wine, because if it’s not appreciated, there will be less and less of it as time goes on.”

Owners Flora and Ed Brier opened the Olde Wine Store several months ago and stocked it with local domestic wines from Washington, Oregon and California, plus international wines from cellars in France, Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Chile and Canada. Most of the store’s wines are priced in the $10-$30 range, but there are more expensive dessert wines and vintages that cost thousands of dollars. In addition to cabernet sauvignons, the store carries pinot noirs, merlots, syrahs and zinfandels, there are dessert wines, port, sherry, sauternes, sparkling wines and champagne. Brier’s wine expert and manager Maria Zeiment can order any wine from anywhere for oenophiles with a taste for expensive grapes.

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“I’ve been meaning to come here ever since it opened,” said Richard Shute, and Island resident of 32 years who dropped by for the tasting. “I signed up to be part of the wine club and I learned that the French (conversation) club will be meeting here, too, and sampling French wines…I really liked tonight’s wine, it had a smooth, sunny flavor and it was only $13.00”

Abel and Madeleine Sosin enjoyed sips of wine between sets of playing sinuous Latin American folk music on the Venezuelan harp, guitar, violin and drum. “This is our first public playing on Mercer Island,” said Madeleine Sosin. “Wine and music go very well together—we’ve played around the world and this is a very European thing to do, to come here after work, sit, talk, listen to music and drink good wine before going home at the end of the day.”

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Though Flora Biers said the store is doing well, Weissman notes that having a roster of diverse events every evening is certain to pull people in to the store, where he hopes they will discover a love of wine and music. “Wednesday we’re having an open mike night with juices, cheese, sausage and chocolates that we hope will bring in the under 21 crowd, Thursday we have Ryan Rossner who will speak on antioxidants and anti-aging, Friday we have Mercer Island’s own Daniel Alpern, on piano and Saturday we have the Brunnell family cellars wine tasting with Daniel Peck on piano from 2 to 5 p.m.,” said Weissman. “Wine is a product made by people for thousands of years that has developed a culture around it, so I find that there’s an interconnectedness with wine, music and community.”

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