This month's wine tastings, new releases:
-Nov. 18, Riverside Gourmet, Rome, 6:30 p.m. "Pinot Noirs and Thanksgiving Wines"
-Nov. 20: Tiger Mountain Vineyards. Rabun Red release party, 1-4 p.m.. Sliders--and live music.
-Nov. 27, Yonah Mountain Vineyards, release party for Serenity Cellars 2010 New Vogh.
Sixth Annual Rome Fine Wine Festival draws 200 guests to sample
150-plus wines while supporting south's oldest symphony orchestra
By Michelle Picon
For Wine News Vine
What the Rome Symphony Orchestra began as a fund-raising activity has turned into a much-anticipated community event and as it continues to grow, so seems to grow the Rome’s interest in and appreciation for fine wine.
Close to 200 guests attended the Rome Symphony’s Six Annual Fine Wine Festival on Sunday afternoon. With more than 150 wines to sample and food provided by 11 local restaurants and caterers, the festival was a definite crowd pleaser.
Barbara Beninato, president of the Rome Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors, says she sees the festival continuing to grow “with additional restaurants and distributors helping us. This one, is our biggest and best in terms of quality of wine we are offering.”
This year’s Patron’s Party was better attended than in previous years, with close to 100 tickets sold, said Festival Chairman David Dohrmann, retired pediatrician and wine connoisseur. The Patron’s Party was held at the beautiful and spacious downtown home of Greg and Ramona Fricks, a short walk from the Wine Festival venue, the Forrest Building.
In his second year as chairman of the event, Dohrmann is in great part responsible for the improved quality of the wine. He says that, in general, ticket sales this year were somewhat slower than expected, which he attributes to the sluggish economy. “People still don’t want to spend too much money,” he said.
The festival’s silent auction raised between $3,000 and $4,000 with $2,100 coming from one very popular item, a one-week stay in a 3-bedroom condo in Tuscany, Italy, donated by Gaetano and Philippa Manino.
“Even though they don’t live in our community anymore, they donated their Tuscan apartment,” says Dohrmann. The apartment has been a regular item at the silent auction for the past several years.
At the Forrest Building, guests also were treated to food from Coosa Country Club, Great Harvest Food Company, Harvest Moon Café, Kroger, Meals on Heels, Panera Bread, Provino’s, The Greener Burger, The Olive Garden, Two-Can-Do Catering and Wow Café and Wingery.
Participating wine distributors and retail outlets included Ark’s Liquor, Scant’s Corner Package, Empire Distributors, Stellar Wines and Riverside Gourmet. With more than 40 wines in four tables, Riverside had close to a third of its total wine selection available for tasting, says owner Kevin Dillmon.
Founded in 1921, the orchestra is the oldest symphony in the South. Proceeds from the Wine Festival will go toward the $15,000 to $17,000 it costs to produce each performance. Most of the symphony’s revenue comes from the Annual Fund Campaign and fund-raisers such as the festival, the debutante ball and the symphony suppers, says Beninato. The 2009 wine festival raised $12,000, she says.
Festival Patron’s Party: Enjoying people who enjoy wine
Cardiothoracic surgeon Jim Young, attending his third Rome Fine Wine Festival, echoed the general impression of most parton party guests. “I think (the festival) has improved over the years as they have changed the venue for the Patron’s Party, and have a higher-end wine,” he said.
The Patron’s Party has four wine stations, each one served by “sommeliers” from the community. Young notes that each person has brought “their ideas and their selections that they want to share with everybody.”
“This is a great activity. There are a number of beautiful stations,“ said Kelly Henson, who with his wife Sharon was in charge of one of the stations. “Probably the highlight at my station was the cabernet tasting, and people seemed to enjoy it greatly.
“We tasted three distinctly different cabernets. One was a Cameron Fisher Cabernet which is a spring mountain fruit, 94 rated. We tasted a Lancaster Cabernet. Lancaster is one of the most established and well known and respected Cabernet producers. And then we had a Ledson Cabernet from Sonoma; that was not an estate fruit but a fruit grown on a number of different areas in Sonoma, but really a great everyday cabernet, ” says Henson.
“We have a Termes from Spain,” says community sommelier Marshall Mann about the selections at his table. “The Termes grape is one of the old vines that survived the blight at the end of the century and wiped out all the French vines. Then we have a California old vine Zinfandel, Titus. Also Sequana, a central district Pinot Noir, made in a beaujoleais style, lots of fruit…complex but lots of fruit,”says Mann.
Mann’s favorite selection was Robert Sinskey’s Four Vineyars. “Sinskey is an all-organic Pinot Noir maker. This is more refined, smoother, less fruit, made from four separate small-batch vineyards in his property,” says Mann.
In charge of the Patron’s Party and also one of the very knowledgeable sommeliers, Coosa Country Club General Manager Jim Lawrence had at his table one of the most expensive wines of the evening, a 2005 Doffo Private Reserve from Temecula, just above San Diego.
” I am just so proud of the extensive wine list that I’ve put together at the Coosa Country Club and I love to share those wines for events like this. I brought some of the best cabernets from California: from Alexander Valley , Oakville, Stags Leap District, and Temecula,” he says. The wines from these areas were, respectively, a Robert Young, a Paradigm, a Cliff Lede and the Doffo.
“A lot of our members enjoy the wines at the club and I love to open them up to new wines that I discover through my wine salespeople and my trips to California,” says Lawrence.
Ray Jarvis, wine buyer at Riverside Gourmet, hosted a fourth station. His favorite: Beaux Freres Vineyard Pinot Noir, an earthy-style burgundian-style pinot that retails for $80. This vineyard is owned by wine critic Robert Parker and his brother-in-law, and Jarvis is trying to get some from the distributor to sell at the store. Another one of Jarvis’ featured wines was a Don Nicanor Malbec, a Tres Sabores Zinfandel from Napa, and a favorite, a Vineyard 29 Cru Cabernet, also from Napa.
What ahead at the North Georgia wineries:
-Nov. 20: Tiger Mountain Vineyards. Rabun Red release party, 1-4 p.m.. Sliders--and live music.
-Nov. 20-21: Three Sisters Vineyards: celebrating the 'best of the best' with ' a limited taste of our finest dessert wines.' $20 tastings.
-Nov. 21: Wolf Mountain Vineyards: Eighth annual Wild Game Brunch & Red Wine Festival. Click
-Nov. 27, Yonah Mountain Vineyards, release party for Serenity Cellars 2010 New Vogh, 2-5 p.m.
-Dec. 3-5: Second Winter Wine Highway weekend: Nine wineries participating with each offering special events during the weekend, according to the Wine Growers Association of Georgia. Additional details will be announced soon. The spring wine highway weekend usually is held in March as well. The winter tour's hours: Friday. Dec. 3 2-5 p.m.; -Saturday, Dec. 4: Noon-5 p.m.; Sunday, Dec. 5: 12:30-5 p.m.
-Dec. 11: Tiger Mountain Vineyards. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hot mulled wine, hors d’oeuvres, gifts for the wine lovers on your list. Appalachian Christmas music.
-March 18-20: Fifth Annual Wine Highway Weekend. More details soon.
Posts
