D.C. International Food and Wine Festival: Part 1

Posted 03/03/2008 at 12:22 PM by Carolyn

    Two miraculous things happened to me this week: first, my dear Mr. Chicken stumbled on a pair of tickets to the second day of D.C. International Food and Wine Festival, which he then gave to me; second, my boss scored a ticket to the super fancy VIP opening night tasting, which he then gave to me. Yay!

    First things first, let me tell you all about my big night at the Grand Cru Tasting Lounge.  I had gone into work that day anticipating an evening at law student happy hour with my sister.  As lovely as that would have been, I was delighted to discover that I had inherited from my boss one ticket to the biggest night of the biggest wine event in D.C.  Awesome! Because I’ve worked at many of these high end tasting events before, I was thrilled to get the chance see what life is like on the other side of the table.  I put on a new dress and headed out in a tizzy of excitement.

    When I first arrived, there were so many different kinds of food and wine to try, I didn’t even know where to begin.  There were so many wonderful wineries from all over the world represented, so I walked around in a little bit of a daze looking for some sort of logical starting point.  Eventually, I just decided to plunge on in, and walked purposefully up to the nearest table of wine.  There was a crowd of three or four people standing there, chatting with the wine representative.  As I stood off to the side of the table, the woman pouring the wine took a look at me.  Without a word to me, she turned back to the others and said with a snide smile, “This is a pretty serious wine.”
 
    I couldn’t believe it.  Snubbed by the very first winery I approached.  What was it about me that said “not serious wine person?” Was it my age? Was it my fabulous (yet demure) outfit? Was it the fact that I was alone?  What could I possibly have done to have made this impression? And to top it all off, this wasn’t one of the great wineries of California or France or Italy that was snubbing me.  This was a wine from Long Island.  That’s right.  A “pretty serious wine” from Long Island doesn’t need my business.  I was immediately in a bad mood. 

    Things didn’t get much better at many of the other wineries, although it certainly didn’t get any worse.  I was asking questions, taking notes, and picking up literature, but many of the wine reps didn’t want to spend their time talking with me.  I felt like Jay-Z at a Crystal tasting (I got 99 problems, snobby Long Island winery that starts with “Wolf” and ends with “fer” ain’t one). 

    Fortunately, the evening wasn’t a total disappointment.  I did get my first taste of Opus One, which was very exciting for me.  It was the 2005, so still very assertive but not what I would call aggressive.  Does that make sense? I also met a man who I believe to be El Gato’s soul mate.  Now all I have to do is find a way to get my older sister and the pastry chef at BLT Steak in the same room.  Sorry I couldn’t make it to your law happy hour, El Gato, but at least I found you a man!

    Check back for my exciting adventures with Baby Run Run at day two of the D.C. International Food and Wine show.  It was an extravaganza!

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