South Beach Wine & Food Festival Seminars

As part of my weekend activities at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, I had the opportunity to coordinate, and participate in, a series of educational wine (and food) seminars.
Lecturers for these seminars included wine educator/author Mr Kevin Zraly of Windows on the World Wine Course fame, Mr. Gary Vay – ner - chuk of Wine Library and Wine Library.TV, Lidia and Joseph Bastianich of Felidia, Becco, Del Posto, and Esca restaurants, 4 cookbooks, and Bastianich Wines, and Mr. Mark Oldman of the PBS Series The Winemakers and author of Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine.

Chefs involved in the seminars included Johnny Vinczencz, Michael Gilligan, Nobu Matsuhisa, and Thomas Buckley.

Topics ranged from Mr. Zraly’s classic “1-hour Wine Expert” and a variation (“1-hour Italian Wine Expert”) to Mr. Vaynerchuk’s and Mr. Oldman’s more modern styles of de-mystifying wine.

Mr. Vaynerchuk and Chef Gilligan hosted an 8-wine (ranging from Champagne to Cabernet Sauvignon to Rioja) pairing exercise with a wild mushroom ravioli dish to provide insight into how a wine and a food can work synergistically or antagonistically.

Mr. Oldman and Chef Johnny V. hosted a seminar titled Guilty Pleasures and the Wines That Love Them, pairing Wines like Laurent-Perrier Brut Rose, Stag’s Leap Winery Viognier, and Argyle Winery’s Nuthouse Pinot Noir with such dishes as slow smoked baby back ribs, Southern fried chicken with mac & cheese, and duck breast “meat loaf” over green pea mash. While I have participated in odd food and wine pairing exercises, never have the wines and foods worked so well.

What struck me overall is that Mr. Zraly, a wine educator with over thirty (30) years of experience in the purchase, sale, service, and education of wine, as well as several other preeminent wine educators, attended several of the other lecture events and sat in the back observing the style and presentation of the younger presenters.

When I asked him his opinion on the content and style of their presentations, Mr. Zraly had nothing but positive things to say, and enthused that Mr. Vaynerchuk had actually influenced the way in which he now approached some of the topics he typically covers.

As Mr. Zraly noted, whether it is himself presenting in his Brooks Brothers suit, or Mr. Vaynerchuk in his jeans and sportshirt, the message is the same – drink new and different wines as often as possible, expand your wine knowledge and vocabulary and, above all, trust your palate.

Best of the Best 2010: Another Perspective

Wine Spectator's Best of the Best, sponsored by Bank of America, and held at the spectacular Fontainbleau Miami Beach, was positioned as one of the highlights of the Food Network South Beach (SoBe) Wine and Food Festival.

Fontainbleu Miami Beach (Source: Southbeachluxuryhotels.com)

The event featured 42 chefs preparing dishes alongside 60 winemakers pouring their best wines and, for the first time, 16 of the top champagne houses displaying and pouring their products. In the previous post, HlyTerroir gave an "employee" perspective of the event. In this post I will provide a perspective from an event-consumer point of view.

Event attendees could valet their cars at either the conference or main entrances to the Fontainbleau. We parked at the main lobby and this allowed us to take in the full grandeur of this recently refurbished dowager of Miami Beach as we take the long walk to the conference area where the actual event is being held. Along the way we pass, on the right-hand side, a large bar bathed in a blue, luminous light (I found out later that it is called Bleau Bar.). It was all I could do to keep walking.

The event registration area was located at the bottom of a double stairway and after negotiating through the "entry" procedure (Hey Spoto), we climbed the stairway to a brightly lit reception area which was ringed by champagne house booths interspersed with chef cooking stations. I was awestruck. Fidel (Wine Barn) and Spoto hurried us over to the Ruinart booth where glasses were produced and generous portions were splashed into our glasses by well-coutoured pourers. Thus began the champagne orgy. We began with the Ruinart (Rose NV, 1998 Dom Ruinart, and Blanc de Blanncs), went on to Dom Perignon (1995 OEnothique, 1998 Rose, and 2000 Dom), then Perrier-Jouet (200 Fleur Brut, Blason Rose, and Grand Brut. By this time adam and Gigi had arrived so we trooped over to the Krug booth and camped out for a while (1998 Vintage and Grande Cuvee). It was at the Krug booth that I first noticed something which became clearer, and made more sense as a Best of the Best attendance strategy, as the evening wore on.

Our group was comprised of two Wine on the Way Board members and their wives, along with Adam and Gigi. At the Krug booth, Adam presented his business card and told the pourers that he was here with some of his best customers. With this introduction we got the fullest attention both in terms of pours and dialogue. As the evening continued, Adam was able to steer us to the most relevant booths (he knew our palates) thus ensuring that we maximized the time that we spent at the event.

I drank a lot of wine that evening inclusive of the '98 and '04 Volcanic Hill (the '04 was great), the '05 Palmaz Cab, the '04 Diamond Creek red Rock, the '07 Au Bon Climat Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the Bertani '06 Secco-Bertani and '00 Amarone, and the Schrader '06 G111 Cab and '07 Aston Estate Pinot Noir Clone 777, among others (This was hedonistic rather than evaluative drinking.). The Schrader experience was a lot of fun because Adam and Gigi had hung out with him at the Shore Club until the wee hours of that same morning and they were reminiscing about the high points.

Throughout the evening I kept running into Fidel (who was ostensibly working) and HlyTerroir (who was also supposed to be working but could be seen walking around drinking wine out of the largest Reidel glass I had ever seen).

All in all it was a very good night. It was one gigantic cocktail party except that the pace was a little more hurried as people tried to move from point to point in as expeditious a manner as possible. The chefs' stations and the pouring booths were against the walls of the conference hall so the route that you took around the event depended on which door you came through initially. This flow-counterflow did make for some discomfort. People were in a good mood though and the mood improved as the evening progressed and the alcohol wended its way deeper into the brain.

Pourers were helpful and smiling and seemed to be enjoying showing their ware. My disappointment was that even though the show was billed as the best of the best, there were some labels there that I would not exactly place in that category and there were many that I would categorize thusly that were not present. That fact did not take away from the impact of the evening.

Best of the Best 2010-Best Seat in the House

Over the weekend of February 26th, 27th, and 28th, I had the opportunity to attend the tastings, seminars, and events revolving around the Food Network’s South Beach Wine and Food Festival. But instead of being a guest or patron of the festival, I was an employee (albeit without monetary compensation).

The event that I attended on Friday evening (February 26th) is called Best of the Best. Participation of a winery or restaurant at this event requires that a principal of the business (owner, winemaker, or chef) be present, and that the winery present its tete de cuvee (best wine) and at least one other wine that represents the quality of the winery. Several wineries also bring older vintages to portray the progression of a particular wine’s evolution.

I was assigned to pour for Vine Cliff Winery, a well-known and respected Napa Valley winery, whose owner was unexpectedly called away and could not attend. I was provided with the 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Oakville appellation) and the 2006 Private Stock (16 Rows) Cabernet Sauvignon.

Le grand fromage of this blog has opined recently regarding the difference between a tasting and a pouring, and the expectations that an attendee may have for each type of event. I tend to think along these same lines and agree with the stipulations referenced in that post, but I also tend to draw expectations based on the size of the event and the opportunities available for an event attended by several thousand people to be educational and informative.

With the attendance level well over 1500 people, I anticipated that this event would be a dash from table to table in search of high-end wines, gulp them down, and move to the next table. I was (and I must say pleasantly) mistaken. The majority of those that I poured for (and I lost count at over 200) requested that I tell them about the winery, its history, the composition / similarities / differences of the two wines, my personal opinions and recommendations on each wine, and other similar questions. Not only that, but several had follow-up questions, indicating that they were actually paying attention to my answers, rather than just making niceties.

With a tariff of $350 per person, Best of the Best does not lend itself to the casual wine consumer, but may also encourage the attendee to attempt to get ones money’s worth. I will now have to reconsider whether the price, the sheer volume of the wine available at an event, or those serving the wine influences the overall tone, or perhaps it comes down to the caliber of the patrons in attendance.