The 2nd annual Flourish for Reena event took place last week.

The Reena Foundation is the charitable arm of Reena; a non-profit social service agency dedicated to integrating individuals who have a developmental disability into the mainstream of society.

Reena was established in 1973 by parents of children with developmental disabilities, as a practical alternative to institutions. Reena strives to create and maintain an environment that respects and promotes dignity, individuality, independence and freedom of choice.

Flourish is a yearly event hosted by The Reena Foundation which provides funding towards education programs and respite services to people with developmental disabilities within the GTA. These essential programs are maintained through the Toby and Henry Battle Development Centre in Thornhill. Your generous ticket purchase to Flourish will help to keep the services alive and accessible to our clients in need.

It really was a wine lovers paradise at Flourish for Reena. There were 16 wine vendors from around the globe with a focus on Chile. They all setup their tasting stations and away everyone went. I’m a beer lover so I didn’t take advantage of the wines as much as I probably should of. I did think the Wine Dating game was kinda cool.

Hosting the night was The Wine Ladies, Georgia and Susanne. They are radio personalities on 1050 CHUM. They wandered around carrying these huge red wine glasses. They were huge, like bigger than my head. I can only assume they were quite drunk by the end of it.

We were entranced with the ‘Sabering Champagne‘ sword performance by Master Sommelier Doris Bradley. It’s a great party trick that requires lots and lots of practice according to Doris. (Yup, that’s her in the video below, I wish I had one from the event)

Here is the science behind the trick

In more scientific terms, it is the meeting of the glass lip (annulus) at the top of the bottle just below the cork (bouchon) with a firm tap of a sabre’s edge and at the weakest point of the glass seam in the bottle. When performed on a suitably chilled bottle of Champagne (shampAn´), the cork and glass annulus fly away, spilling little of the precious Champagne. The pressure inside a bottle of Champagne (100psi) ensures that no glass falls back into the bottle making it safe to drink the spoils.(source)

The food was supplied by Greg Couillard of the Spice Room, Encore and Bite Catering. It was all very delicious, although Danielle and I missed the mini burgers that were going around.

EDIT: I can’t believe I forgot to write about something I thought was very clever, A cigar company that delivers. They even include a a beautiful ceder box. The cigars are from Nicaragua. I thought it would be a good gift for cigar people.