Soirée Features Champagne Expert John Tilson
On Saturday, June 8, from 4:30 to 7:00 pm, Hillside House will host our 10th annual fundraising event in the gardens of El Mirador Estate in Montecito. This year we are thrilled to present renowned wine collector and writer John Tilson, who will introduce four French champagnes he has specially selected for the occasion. So we thought we'd tell you a little more about John Tilson and his love of champagne. John Tilson is an unlikely phenomenon in the wine world. He is the founder and principal author of the internationally-known, now-online magazine,The Underground Wine Letter, and proprietor of a highly esteemed wine cellar in Montecito. A former securities analyst, he began travelling throughout California and tasting wines with his wife in the late 1960s and, only at the urging of others, began writing about wines. From this The Underground Wine Letter was born. In those early days Tilson says, he "developed the format of the magazine, wrote the articles, printed the labels, found a printer and out came the first issue 'First Vintage, First Crush' in August-September 1979. With our 2-year-old son, Jeff, crawling around on our living room floor, Laurie and I, along with help from some neighborhood kids (who were happy to work for a few bucks), stuffed and sealed envelopes, affixed labels and stamps on 10,000 issues and carted them down to our little post office in Seal Beach. They were overwhelmed! This was more mail that they had ever imagined." Because wine was his passion rather than his vocation, he stayed true to his love of wine and his principles, while his Wine Letter grew to be a treasured resource for wine lovers that is often quoted in other publications. Now online, the magazine continues to this day, with John, writing in his signature accessible and engaging style, at the helm. Gary Westby, writing for K&L Wine Buyers' Uncorked blog, says, "John Tilson has long been one of the most astute wine writers in the USA and a huge fan of Champagne....His very experienced palate is one of the most reliable of all journalists and his passion for wine in general, and Champagne in particular, is authentic." In fact, Tilson says he and his wife drink champagne nearly every night. Tilson got interested in champagne very early and The Underground Wine Letter became a pioneer, aiming to review every champagne available in the U.S. each year. Tilson says, "While we never quite reached our goal, we did eventually get up to a couple hundred different Champagnes. All of our tastings were done blind and with food. We would typically do 20 or so at a time and after tasting all the Champagnes we would go back at later times and do re-tastings of many of them." Tilson loves champagne so much that his first article was subtitled "It has no peer and nothing else deserves the name." He says of champagne, "...its great versatility and compatibility with food seals the deal as one of the greatest wines in the world period!" (Read more about John Tilson and champagne here.)  The Underground Wine Letter's motto is "Drink What You Like & Like What You Drink." This no-nonsense, unpretentious approach to enjoying wines with food is no doubt a key to why Tilson is so popular with wine lovers worldwide. Come see for yourself on Saturday, June 8 at our Sunset Soirée when John takes us on a magical mystery tour of four champagnes he has hand-selected for our enjoyment. Open to all, this Sunset Soirée and Champagne Tasting includes delectable hors d'oeuvres, dessert, live music, and a silent auction with a wealth of fabulous offerings. All proceeds support the day-to-day operations of Hillside House to foster rewarding, healthy lives for our residents.
Tickets to the Sunset Soirée are $150 per person, $125 for one additional guest. Business sponsorships are also available. To attend the Sunset Soirée and help make a difference for Hillside House, visit http://bit.ly/sunsetsoiree2013 or call Curt Lauber at Hillside House at (805) 687-0788 ext. 15.
We would be delighted to share this delightful occasion with you. You might also like to visit www.undergroundwineletter.com. Subscription is free and there are nearly 300 articles on wine to explore on the site with more being added each week. |
Special Thanks to Our Sponsors
We send our gratitude to our leading sponsors of this year's Sunset Soirée, whose generosity is helping to ensure the success of the event, providing funding for our day-to-day operations to keep our residents healthy and enjoying meaningful lives.  Premier Cru Sponsor: Marie Williams Shipman
Estate Sponsors: Marborg Industries, Tita Lanning
Jereboam Sponsors: Silvio DiLoreto, Jim and Marcia Wolfe
We are also very grateful to our Magnum and Vintage level sponsors.
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How Suzi B Joined Our Hillside House Family  | | Suzi B |
Suzix Steedman trains show-jumping horses for a living. With her mother, she has cared for her niece Suzi Bacon, since she was born. When her mother passed away, Suzix took over full-time care, but that was hard, given the specialized care that Suzi B needs and the fact that Suzix's job takes her away most weekends. So she started looking for a good home nearby for her niece.
After trying a small, private 3-bed home, where they discovered the staff could not handle the medical care and level of needs that Suzi B has, they found Hillside House. It has been the perfect match for thirteen years now. "She loves Hillside House so much that I could not move from Santa Barbara. She calls it her home and loves to go back there."
Suzix raves about Hillside House herself. "There's always a party or a band or something to do. I can't believe how many fun things they have for the residents. Everybody seems to be entertained all the time. And there are so many staff waiting to greet the residents when they come home from their day programs. On Saturday mornings Suzi gets her makeup and nails done by the staff. She loves that. She watches the news and talks about it with me, and she loves listening to music at Hillside House. I am so grateful for Gail and Nikki, Susan and Shawn, Liz and the nursing staff, and all the others. They are amazing. The compassion that they have for the residents is incredible. This isn't a job to them; it's what they really care about. I've never seen anybody there be in a bad mood. They have such a hard job; it amazes me how much they care."
Suzix takes her niece out a couple times a week and they eat out or go to the beach or to Suzix's house, where they can "do girl stuff," like putting on makeup, and listen to music and dance together. After a while, Suzi B will say it's time to go home. She's always happy to return to Hillside House.
We love having Suzi B as a part of our Hillside House family, and we are very grateful to have Suzix Steedman in our family of support.
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Our Neighbor Jon Valois Joins the Board  We extend a warm welcome and thank you to Jon Valois, the newest member of our volunteer Board of Directors and a neighbor of Hillside House.
Jon is a partner and regional representative of IOA Insurance Services' Santa Barbara office. A Santa Barbara native and 24-year industry veteran, Jon has spent his entire career as an agent in the area. A second-generation insurance broker, Jon started working for his father's insurance agency at the young age of 19 and worked his way up through various departments. Jon and his wife, Mary Anne, have a daughter, Lucinda Sloane, now 8 months old. In addition to spending time with them, he enjoys scuba diving, auto racing and shaolin kempo karate. He dreams of living in Hawaii part-time and teaching his daughter to scuba dive in Hawaii's warm waters. When asked why he joined the Hillside House Board at this time, Valois replied, "I am very grateful for what our community has provided me and my family and I have recently been searching for a way i can give back. When I visited Hillside House I was very impressed by the residents and staff I met. I could see that the staff truly enjoy what they do. As I said goodbye to the residents that day I left thinking of ways that I could help, help my neighbors." _______________________________________________________________________________________ |
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President Announces BRAIN Initiative
 As quoted in the White House blog on April 2, 2013, "President Obama unveiled the BRAIN Initiative--a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury."
The President called on foundations, individuals, research institutes and government agencies to come together to study the human brain in an effort to prevent, treat and cure brain disorders and injuries and create new job opportunities for people with brain disorders. He said, ""As humans we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter sitting between our ears."
The BRAIN Initiative is short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. The White House blog states, "The BRAIN Initiative is launching with approximately $100 million in funding for research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the President's Fiscal Year 2014 budget. Foundations and private research institutions are also investing in the neuroscience that will advance the BRAIN Initiative."
Read more here and watch the President's announcement here.
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