WineInk: A look ahead
WineInk
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Hello! Are you out there? Is anyone in Aspen this week?
I do kind of feel like I’m drinking alone here. There are six weeks and counting until the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and as it is the middle of the off-season here in the Rockies, it is a perfect time to consider the coming summer of wine.
Father’s Day weekend, June 14 to 16, will see the town fill with old friends, new tourists, and wine-and-food aficionados as the Classic returns for its 41st rendition. This year promises to see some great juice poured — and spilled — in the Grand Tasting tents and the seminars, as well as at the plethora of parties that will be hosted by producers and distributors. If you are a wine lover, Aspen is the place to be.
I have been attending the Classic since the early 1990s, and I doubt that without it being such an integral part of the Aspen summer season, this column would not exist. Since 1993, I have missed just one Classic and have embraced the opportunities it provides each summer.
You see, instead of having to travel to visit winemakers and taste their wines on their turf, the most esteemed wine producers in the world come here for three days each year and bring their best stuff to, well, my turf. It is always a compressed and challenging three days in many ways, but the chance to meet so many legends and taste and talk through their wines has been a privilege and an education.
And while I love to cruise through the tents at the Grand Tastings — even if they do get a bit packed — it is the seminars that get me frothy with anticipation. A great wine seminar can take you to places that you have never been. It may introduce you to a new region or a new style of wine. It can be fun and informative and, in just 45 minutes, can enhance your understanding of the broader world of wine.
This year will see close to twenty wine seminars presented at the Classic. And what takes place in the seminar venues is the its special sauce. Dozens of the most knowledgeable and entertaining wine professionals in the industry spend months selecting just the right wines and preparing presentations that will entertain attendees. Some are regulars who each year change up the wines they bring and the focus of the seminars, while others are new presenters who focus on keeping the seminars fresh.
A quick look at just the first day of seminars shows the diversity of the wine world that will be on display.
At the opening seminar session on Friday, June 14, at 10:00 a.m., June Rodil of Texas by way of the Philippines will be down by the River in Tent #1 presenting a seminar titled “Quelle Surprise! Insider Finds from Burgundy.” Rodil, a wine and culinary entrepreneur, has opened twenty different restaurant concepts over the years, including the Parisian-inspired June’s All Day on South Congress in Austin, Texas, which is part of the MML Hospitality group that also operates Clark’s Oyster Bar and Las Montanas here in Aspen.
In addition to her role as a founder of Goodnight Hospitality in Houston, which has several new concepts in the works, she is also a master sommelier and Wine Enthusiast’s Sommelier of the Year 2018. She will be offering up great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay-based wines from the Burgundy region of France that may be new to you — and me — at her seminar. A must-do for Burgundy lovers.
Another highlight of that opening morning to look forward to will be a chill session with sommeliers Femi Oyediran and Miles White in the Hotel Jerome. The pair — who opened the acclaimed Graft Wine Shop and Wine Bar in uptown Charleston, South Carolina, and bring big-time bona fides to the proceedings — will be hosting “Cool Wines & Hot Dogs.” No doubt global grapes will pair with the finest sausages, and you might expect some music from the duo who describe their shop as “a celebration of good wine, community, great times, and the best music.” Sounds like Aspen.
Staying with the chill theme will be Sabato Sagaria and Gary Obligacion, who will tag team in the other River Tent with “Just Chillin’: The World’s Coolest Chillable Reds.” Cool wines from cool guys just in time for summer.
Sagaria is well-known to Aspenites for the six-year stint he had as a sommelier at The Little Nell Hotel. During that time, he achieved status as the “5th bald Master Sommelier in the world.” Today, he helms Après Cru Hospitality in New York. This year, he will again pair in the wine seminar with Gary Obligacion whose CV in hospitality begins with “Stock Boy-Chez Panisse.” It doesn’t get any cooler than that. Since that auspicious baptism, he has held senior positions at the Lodge at Pebble Beach, Post Ranch in Big Sur, and with the Alinea Group in Chicago. He currently is the vice president of food and beverage for Aparium Hotel Group in Chicago. These two veterans of the Classic will make your summer better as they chill and pour red wines from places like France, Italy, and Spain.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Food & Wine without an appearance by Mark Oldman, an Aspen favorite who returns with his “World’s Best Special Occasion Wines” seminar — one that always pulls out all the stops.
“This is shaping up to be a humdinger this year,” he enthused in a recent email about his seminar. “The eight wines are the crème de la creme, and five different countries are represented, including gems from Argentina and South Africa — both new countries to ‘World’s Best,'” he continued. “Attendees should expect to taste the “Best-of-best Champagne like Gosset Celebris and an amazing aged Bordeaux, the 2009 Gruaud-Larose shipped directly from the winery, and Joseph Phelps’ legendary ‘Insignia.'”
He then teased, “And there is a yet-to-be-revealed ‘subtheme’ for ‘World’s Best,’ which is going to be especially fun this year, taking attendees back to childhood — if childhood involved the best wines in the world!”
That’s just a smattering of the options on tap.
Returning presenters include Anthony Giglio who is bringing a Taste of New Jersey with his “Salute to the Sopranos: A 25th Anniversary Tasting.” From Boulder, Frasca’s Bobby Stuckey and Carlin Karr will be bringing a century of Tuscan history with them as they explore “Chianti Classico: 100 Years of Sangiovese Greatness.” And Wanda Mann comes back to close the Classic with “Sips For Sailors: Coastal Wine for Sunny Days.”
It’s just six weeks away. Hope you’re around.
