Cheri and I just finished up the 2013 Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival, and there is a lot to talk about. There should be at least four or five blogs coming to cover the breadth of the events, including the seminar series, the Friday night party at Rosecliff and the Grand Tastings. Add in the celebrity chefs, dozens of restaurants and caterers, hundreds of different wines and one of the most beautiful venues in the world for something like this, and you have one heck of a weekend. Not to mention the very exclusive Collectible Wine Dinner held Saturday night at The Elms, which we did not attend but heard a lot about from those that did. It was all good.
For a few highlights we point to the seminars, Alex Guarnaschelli cooking (with a stand up routine as an extra!), amazing weather, Rosecliff at night and the very professional run manner of all the events. Then there are the wines, and we tried at least a hundred. They ranged from good everyday values to killer wines that would be wonderful in anyone’s cellar. Some are prohibitively expensive (for us) at well over $100 a bottle, but there are a host that are very affordable as well. We’ll report on them all.
Taking the entire weekend to experience the festival was a wonderful luxury and we heartily recommend it if you can pull it off. We saw the beautiful Harvest Moon Friday night from the lawn at Rosecliff, attended two of the seminars and hit both days of the Grand Tastings. We had previously given our opinion that you can’t
At the Grand Tasting and not upset about it!
really do the entire Grand Tasting in a day, and this weekend just reinforced that impression. When you do both days the Sunday event is much more relaxed and enjoyable. When you factor in that we found one of our favorite wines at the end of Sunday then the value of both days is evident. Had we not been there Sunday we would never have tried the Podere Sapaio wines. As it is we are having the distributor put together a mini vertical half case for is. We’re also ordering some of the Casey Flat Ranch Estate reds. There are more that will be finding their way into our cellar as well, more to come on that.
This was great fun as expected, and we are already looking forward to next year. Details to follow.
A votre sante!
Did you get a chance to try my exotic rosé collection? DEFINE wines. Great ready, looking forward to reading more. DEFINE the moments shared. Cheers!
David – we did not actually get to try your wines at the festival – there was more than we could get into the two days. We’ll be at the Greenwich Wine and Food on October 4th. Are you pouring there? There was a lot of rose flying – it has really made a comeback.
Aww that’s too bad. I brought a barrel sample of our 2012 Pinot Noir Rosé. No we’re back in San Francisco now tying up loose ends with Harvest 2013 in Napa. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again soon. We’ll be releasing the 2012 Rosé in December.
Cheers!
-David James