Food. Drink. Dogs.
Life's simple pleasures can bring people together. People like newcomer Nancy Hofstetter, 52, and the batch of friends she's made since moving to Charlotte last year. For Hofstetter, it started with dogs. She met neighbors in Plaza Midwood while walking toy poodles Sofia and Sammy.
Next came wine. Last summer, a fellow dog walker, Michelle Thompson, told Hofstetter about a wine-tasting group she was starting – the Plaza Midwood Winos. Thompson, who has lived in Charlotte for 20 years and Plaza Midwood for the last 12, hosted the first tasting. Hofstetter held the second in her home and it's been a monthly affair ever since.
And finally food. Hofstetter is also part of a dinner club, an offshoot of the wine group, in which participants take turns cooking.
Hofstetter, who works for a global logistics company, moved from Pembroke Pines, Fla. to be closer to her father and sister in her native Cleveland. Her social circle here is bigger than she could have imagined in Florida, where it was two years before she and her neighbors talked.
“It wasn't for lack of trying, because I talk to everyone,” she said during October's wine event.
The Plaza Midwood Winos started in July 2007 and has about 15 or 16 members, just enough to pack but not overcrowd the neighborhood's signature bungalows. It's a mix of newcomers and old-timers and people of all ages. A few don't even live in the neighborhood but in adjacent ones, such as Chantilly. And it's mostly women, but some husbands come along, too. Each month, the host picks the theme. For October, Denise Bear chose “best wines for under $10.”
“It was a great way to get to know people right off the bat,” said Bear, 23, who moved to Charlotte and to Plaza Midwood a year and a half ago from Houston, where she went to college. These aren't wine snobs. Thompson, who has taken two courses on wine, is the closest to a sommelier. But mostly people stand around and sip wine, eat hors d'oeuvres and talk. The wine is just the conversation starter.
“This group has brought a lot of people in the neighborhood together,” said Susan Seiden, a 10-year resident, on her way into Bear's house.
Life is so good that Hofstetter hopes to never move again.
“I couldn't have landed in a better place. I picked (Charlotte) out of nowhere,” she said. But “it was meant to be. All the stars lined up.”
To learn more about or contact the Plaza Midwood Winos, go to
www.plazamidwood.org.
Are you a member of a food- or wine-related social group? Let me hear about it. abaldwin@charlotteobserver.com, 704-358-5179.
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