Aspen: Day 1 Report
OK. So here's how the first night of the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen feels if you're a wine editor:
5:30 PM. Stop by Betts & Scholl wine party. Gawk at Dennis Scholl's extraordinary collection of modern art. Taste some B&S Hermitage Blanc, Aussie Riesling, Aussie Grenache and Côte Rôtie while munching on hors d'oeuvres made by James Beard award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein, of Michy's in Miami. 6:15 Jump into car, drive over to the big F&W welcoming reception. Exchange about fifteen words apiece with about two hundred people. Taste a rum cocktail that turns out to have lavender in it. Decide once again that lavender is meant for soap, not food. 7:15 Jump into shuttle bus, zoom over to the Wines from Spain shindig, where chef José Andrés is presiding over paella for three hundred people, which entails a paella pan literally big enough to seat four adults comfortably, if they wanted to be turned into paella. Taste Spanish wines, among them the 2006 Portal de Montsant Sant Bru Blanc, a fragrant blend of Garnacha Blanca, Garnacha Gris and Macabeo, and decide that yes, it was a good idea that you chose this particular wine to pour in your "Spain's Profound White Wines" seminar tomorrow morning.
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