Last Thursday night I joined a sold out crowd for the 2010 edition of the Denver International Wine Festival’s “Taste Of Elegance Chef’s Wine And Food Competition/Auction Wine.” After six years, the DIWF (which also includes a Grand Tasting and Front Range Winery tour) has evolved into a world-class event, and certainly one of Denver’s premier culinary events. With 12 restaurants and 40 wineries, there was ample variety but a really cool bonus was that the chef’s were asked to create a dish to pair with two selected wines.
These pairings also featured gold medal winners from the Denver International Wine Competition, which had received over 500 entries from around the world. I enjoyed wines from Andretti, Rock Wall, Dr. Konstantin Frank, and Quady. But my favorite wines of the night were the Zinfandels from Robert Biale.
Congratulations to festival producers Chris and Darcy Davies, who also will donate a portion of ticket sales and all of the proceeds of the silent auction to the Foundation for Sight and Sound’s Help America Hear Program.