27th Annual Food & Wine Classic In Aspen.
Team Bravo! Shawn and Nancy Hagen, Terry and Whitney Hagen and Don and Ann Parfet along with their family members Susan & Jim Reeks, recently traveled to Aspen for the Annual Food & Wine Classic. The festival featured chefs (both established and rising) from around the country who host culinary seminars as well as wineries and brew houses from around the world offering over 40,000 bottles of wine and beer for the 5,000 attendees to sample. What follows are our collective meeting and tasting notes.
FRIDAY JUNE 19
A kick off breakfast and panel discussion for the Trade guests sponsored by American Express in collaboration with the editors of Food & Wine magazine opened the three-day event with a very informative session from the Legends. Speakers included Jacques Pepin, Danny Meyer and Alan Stillman who discussed the past 30 years of the restaurant industry. When Alan Stillman, who founded TGI Fridays and now owns Smith & Wollensky, was asked if he ever made a mistake? His reply was "Just expensive lessons!"
9:15 A.M. Don and Terry attended the private tasting of Veuve Clicquot champagne, the famous champagne house of France that was responsible for inventing remuage, or riddling. We were privileged to compare four decades of champagne side by side including La Grande Dame. Since we had a full day ahead of us we did some spitting. (Madame Clicquot probably rolled over in her grave).
As we walked to our next seminar, we saw Chef Mario Batali strolling the streets of Aspen dressed in his trademark shorts and orange clogs.
12:45 P.M. The Tasting Tents opened and we discovered and tasted John Anthony Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. This is a great sweet wine from Napa that scored a 91 in Wine Spectator. We hope to add this to our wine list soon. We ate foie gras with rhubarb jam on toasted sourdough; this clearly is Aspen's idea of peanut butter and jelly. The toughest decision of the day was deciding if we wanted fennel pollen or truffle oil on our French fries.
2:00 P.M. Danny Meyer, owner of Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla and other hot restaurants in Manhattan did a great seminar on combining pizzas and wines. We started the seminar with deconstructed pizza ingredients and compared eight wines with each item. We finished the lesson by eating a finished pizza slice with our favorite wine, a Super Tuscan, Rocca Della Macie Rubizzo, Radda Italy that we offer at Bravo! for $27.00.
3:30 P.M. Iron Chef Michael Symon from Cleveland restaurant fame did an interesting seminar on braised pork belly that we will feature as a special in October.
4:45 P.M. Back to the Wine tents for a few more tastings. We were running out of time so we just headed for the Reserve wines.
SATURDAY JUNE 20
9:15 A.M. Marc Stroobandt, master beer sommelier working with Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Leffe had a fantastic seminar called "A Celebration Of Belgian Beers." His approach was exactly how Shawn and Adam craft our beers at Bravo! The correct amount of hops will supply the salt, pepper and bitterness tastes while the barley adds the natural sugar or sweetness to the beer. The correct glass allows the foam or head to form which helps stimulate the taste buds.
12:45 P.M. The main wine tents reopened and we saw our neighbors from St. Joseph who are setting up food demo kitchens for Kitchen Aid. They are busy with so many food demos around town but it's nice to see Michigan represented.
2:00 P.M. We were invited to a private beer and food-pairing event sponsored by The Boston Beer Company makers of Samuel Adams Beers. The founder Jim Koch loves sharing his beers including Utopia that sells for over $100.00 per bottle. The food was prepared by award winning Chef David Burke, owner of David Burke & Donatella.
8:00 P.M. Food & Wine Magazine invited Team Bravo to a dinner prepared by this year's selection of Top 10 Best New Chefs. Most of the guests are fellow chefs from around the world. More foie gras and wine but not too much as tomorrow will be another tough day of Food & Wine. We have only tried a few of the 40,000 wines but still have another day left.
SUNDAY JUNE 21
10 A.M. Don attends a private tasting of Barolo Monfortino from the highly acclaimed winery named Giacomo Conterno. The wines were extraordinary. The tasting provided not only the chance to taste from eight different vintages but to learn from one of the principals in the family how they make such beautiful wines.
All of Team Bravo! attends the Top Chef Classic Cook Off featuring Stephanie Izard and Jacques Pepin vs Josea Rosenberg and Ming Tsai in a true quick fire challenge. It was a true battle of Top Chef winners and their sous chefs creating lobster pizzas and fresh berry cocktails. Everyone won especially Team Bravo!
Life is tough but someone has to do it, after all our guests expect the best.