We’re excited to celebrate the holidays with two bottles of amazing Oregon sparkling wine! This holiday season we’ve partnered with Portland restaurant superstars Jenn Louis and David Welch as our guest curators for our holiday sparkling selection.

Co-owners of two beloved restaurants, Lincoln and Sunshine Tavern, Jenn serves as executive chef while while David runs the beverage program and the front of the house.

Jenn has appeared on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters; she was named one of the “Best New Chefs” by Food & Wine in 2012, and was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation Award of Best Chef: Northwest in 2010 and 2011. David has also been a producer for public radio's Savvy Traveler and contributed to public radio shows The Splendid Table and Marketplace, always focused on food and beverage.

Their first selection is a 2014 Grenache Rose from Gamine Wines. David and Jenn commented that this wine has a soft acidity with a rich mouth feel. It has a beautiful nose of strawberries and is an incredibly food friendly wine.

The second is a 2011 Sparkling Brut, made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, from Rallison Cellars. David and Jenn noted that this is a very clean, classic style of brut sparkling wine with high acidity and a light peach nose.

Jenn and David are loving the emerging sparkling wine trend here in Oregon. As they said, “The growth and maturity of Oregon sparkling wines is truly impressive. Winemakers are creating wines that are on par with much of Europe.”

We hope you’ll love these sparkling wines as much as we all do. Looking for something special to pair them with? Take a look at the butternut squash potato latke recipe that Jenn created for this shipment!