Wine event offers MSU Museum sip of support

| The State News Laingsburg resident Connie Ball, left, asks Kay Beers, right, of Nick & Nick Classic Wines, about the Sausal Family Zinfandel on Friday during the Eleventh Annual Wine Tasting Benefit at the Kellogg Center. The event benefited the MSU Museum and featured 13 vendors with over 120 different wines to choose from.

Steve Szilvagyi makes wine, cooks with wine and wants to keep up on the latest varieties of the drink.

That's why a wine-tasting benefit at the Kellogg Center on Friday was perfect for the East Lansing resident.

Tables were lined with more than 100 different kinds of wine, as volunteers poured many glasses and wine distributors answered questions about the different selections to support ongoing programs at the MSU Museum.

About 300 people attended the two-hour event for $30 each.

"We use this as a friend and a fundraiser," said Bill Matt, coordinator of the benefit. "We hope to develop long lasting relationships with people in the Greater Lansing area to help support the museum."

The wine-tasting benefit for the museum started 11 years ago, when Steve Scheffel, the owner of Goodrich's Shop-Rite, 940 Trowbridge Road, came up with the collaboration between the Greater Lansing Vintners Club and the MSU Museum.

Scheffel is on the MSU Museum board and has a professional relationship and friendship with the Vintners Club.

"The Greater Lansing Vintners Club is intimately associated with wine and it was a nice partnership with the MSU Museum and it's a nice charity event," Scheffel said. "We can have sort of a symbiotic relationship with our members and their wine interest and the museum's interest."

The benefit supports everything from the educational to community outreach programs at the museum. It also provides a link to the Vintners Club to connect more people to the museum.

"It's a good opportunity for people to meet one another and it's kind of a nice celebratory event for folks involved in the museum, too," said C. Kurt Dewhurst, director of the MSU Museum.

Sponsoring the event was the Greater Lansing Vintners Club, the Kellogg Center, TravelHost Lansing Area Magazine and the MSU Museum.

All the proceeds from the wine-tasting benefit go to the MSU Museum, and the annual event usually raises between $6,000 and $8,000 from a combination of ticket sales and a silent auction.

"All the items for the silent auction are all donated from the vendors, from different departments on campus, from the community and some hotel donated some overnight stays," said Lora Helou, communications manager at the museum.

Also, Mike Brenton, president of the Vintners Club, said that all the wine is donated by different wine distributors around the state that purchase their wine from wineries.

"They do this out of charity, and many of the wine distributors appreciate having the opportunity to get their wine in front of potential wine-consuming public," Brenton said.

The Kellogg Center was a new location for the benefit. The James B. Henry Center for Executive Development previously hosted the event.

"The Kellogg Center has been a great partner for us in the past, and this is the same place where the museum has its Chocolate Party," Helou said. "They do an outstanding job taking care of not only the vendors but planning the event, organizing it and keeping it running, so the opportunity for wine tasting got offered here, too."

The museum also hosts other fundraisers throughout the year, such as the Dino Dash, a 5K run and walk in the fall, the Chocolate Party in February and the Great Lakes Folk Festival in the summer.