Foodies, rejoice! Dates for the 20th Annual "Taste of Vail" food and wine festival, the nation’s premier spring food and wine festival, have been announced and tickets are already on sale to attend.
This year’s event takes place April 8-10 and features more than 30 guest chefs, restaurateurs and sommeliers as well as more than 50 wineries. Over the 20 years of the Taste of Vail, renowned chefs such as San Francisco’s George Marrone from Aqua and Traci Des Jardine of Jardiniere, Lee Jeftner of Spago in Beverly Hills and Colorado’s own Curtis Lincoln from the Brown Palace Hotel have featured their award-winning dishes alongside Vail’s finest chefs.
The 2010 Taste of Vail features the 6th Annual Colorado Lamb Cookoff and Après Ski Tasting, Mountaintop Picnic at 10,350 feet above sea level on Vail Mountain, the Grand Tasting and numerous seminars and showcase dinners.
Here are a few of the expected festival highlights:
- Master Sommelier Jerry Comfort from Fosters Group will lead a seminar on Umami. The term represents one of the basic “tastes” sensed by the mouth and is often referred to as savoriness. Comfort will explore this sensation with seminar attendees.
- Speed Dating with Pinot allows seminar attendees to site in small groups with the winemaker and taste wine that usually is not available for commercial purchase. Every ten minutes, the groups shift to the next winemaker to ask questions and taste more wine. The event ends with a 30-minute panel discussion and open forum.
- Wine 201 is a double blind tasting seminar where attendees are given wine in a black coffee cup so they cannot discern some of the color and visually distinguishable characteristics of the pour.
Ticket prices begin at $4 for the Colorado Lamb Cookoff or attendees can purchase a $60 all-you-can eat and drink wristband for the competition. The Mountaintop Picnic is $120 (when a small army of highly acclaimed Vail Valley chefs prepare a gourmet feast atop Vail Mountain) with tickets for the Grand Tasting $175 (food, wine tasting, dancing 10 p.m.-midnight, Saturday evening).
All proceeds from the Taste of Vail benefit local non-profit organizations in the Vail Valley such as the Red Ribbon Project, Boarder to Boarder, Food Banks of Eagle County, Shaw Regional Cancer Center, Eagle County Hospice, Jazz Goes to Schools, and the Vail Valley Youth Foundation to name a few.
Buy tickets and get more details for the 20th Annual Taste of Vail, at http://www.tasteofvail.com.
Getting to Vail-Eagle is actually affordable with one-way rates of $150 offered by both USAirways and United Airlines (these two carriers continue to serve Vail after the peak ski season has ended). To qualify, simply give a 21-day or more advance purchase notice. This rate is valid seven days a week, based on availability.
Another alternative is to fly into Denver and take a scenic road trip to Vail with a rental car (125 miles or about a two and a half hour drive via Interstate 70).
One-way airfare rates to Denver start from $129 during frequent sale periods. AirTran is currently running a systemwide sale for trip finished on or before May 26 when tickets are purchased on or before Jan. 14.
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