Denver Food + Wine Festival 2017 Recap
Photo credit Nick Adorni at Grand Tasting
The six-day celebration of fine wine, food, and spirits known as Denver Food + Wine Festival features an array of events ranging from dinners, discussions and demos, and pajama brunch parties! DF+WF is co-sponsored by the Colorado Restaurant Association and Southern Wine and Spirits and is the only food and wine festival of which all proceeds directly benefit charities. This year’s charities are Colorado ProStart, operated by the Colorado Restaurant Foundation, The Denver Post Community Foundation, and Metropolitan State University of Denver.
DF+WF returned last weekend for it’s thirteenth consecutive year featuring over 40 top Colorado restaurants and more than 700 wines and spirits from the region’s most lauded wine professionals at the Grand Tasting. It is completely worth the $125 ticket price if only the event were a bit longer. It’s impossible to try and sample even half of the wines, let alone the spirits and fun cocktails scattered throughout.
And on top of trying all that, there’s the amazing food! We really enjoyed the large variety of food this year – from hearty BBQ, sliders & bratwurst to light tuna poke, shrimp and fruit, to sweet pastries. There was something for everyone, as it should be, and hundreds of perfect drink pairings. After getting a new food dish we ended up just asking for whatever wine would best compliment the dish at the wine booth closest to us. It was a great method and made the day absolutely delicious! We also loved that everyone received a Riedel wine glass to use and keep (they’re the best), but wish they gave out the food & wine carrier trays like in previous years. Overall, the Grand Tasting is a really fun event and offers the largest, most diverse selection of wine than any other festival or tasting in the Denver area.
Two nights before the Grand Tasting, instead of the night before like last year which was tough on the body, celebrity bartenders from the Colorado Bartenders Guild competed for Denver’s “best cocktail” at the ShakeDown. Along with cocktails, wine and Fuji water were available and a handful of restaurants were competing alongside the bartenders for “best bite”. Live music enhanced the event with a special acoustic set from Dragondeer, which we enjoyed.
Andreas Pejov's cocktail
The cocktails were sample-sized, but they were unlimited until they ran out, and we definitely drank the three-hours worth of samples! Attendees also received a "best cocktail" token to turn in to the bartender who’s drink you decided was your favorite and they would give you a full size pour! It was a tough call for us between about three of the cocktails and two of our favorites ended up receiving the award:
“Fake Rolex” by Andreas Pejov of Oak at Fourteenth in Boulder & “The Sophomore” by Shawn Williams of Bar Dough in Highlands.
Shawn Williams' cocktail
After a very fun and boozy few days, the DF+WF culminated in their Rise + Dine brunch party at Stanley Market. This event was the least impressive for us as the brunch food was not substantial or varied enough. There were just a couple restaurants giving hardy samples, like mini burritos and empanadas, but again they were just samples and they ran out. The other places just had little pastry dishes or tiny morsels of a dish. And the “world’s largest Bloody Mary bar” definitely fell short of the expectations they advertised. Not only were there not that many toppings, most of them were carb and cheese based. The good points of the brunch party included patio games, a fun Boomerang-style photo booth, plenty of tables and chairs, and bottomless mimosas that we can happily report never ran out!
Cheers to another year at Denver Food + Wine Festival!
Rise + Dine
~ Tiffany Candelaria
Winter Wine Festival | Celebrating Colorado's Other Craft
You may not think rolling fields of vineyards when you think of the Colorado landscape, but unbeknownst to most CO residents the precious grapes have been thriving here since before prohibition era. And this past Friday we paid tribute to our boozy grape enthusiast ancestors in true Two Parts fashion. From sweet rose to full and inviting red blends, the Winter Wine Festival covered all of our favorite grapes and was an eye opening introduction to Colorado's second favorite craft to harvest.
This sold-out event took place in the newly remodeled McNichol’s Building and was spread over two levels. The first hour saw a line of young and old alike waiting out to the street, but once you made it inside the festivities began as you were greeted with a glass of Molly’s Spirits Cider. From there you went upstairs and began wine tasting!
With an open mind and an empty glass, we began to make the rounds to each station. There were of course a few favorites, a few we had to skip because of their long lines, and a couple of go-to tables. #UltraTip: Grab a cup of cider before taking on the long wine lines, they were quite tasty and came with a larger pour - definitely made the wine lines less begrudging to wait in. The ciders and wines were all Colorado-based as promised and showcased the variety of flavors our state can create, from deep reds, to Rose’s, to whites of all types. In fact, one of our favorite white wines wasn’t even made with grapes, but with our famous Palisade Peaches. A sweet treat!
With all that wine you do need/want food no matter how much you already ate for dinner. Luckily there were savory snacks and sweet treats to quell our cravings and without much of a wait, if any! We noshed on breads, cheeses, meats, chocolates, doughnuts and pie while we sipped wine and listened to Fresh Noise play live.
Wine tasting is an intimate outing, normally accompanied with harrowing tales of the grapes and the winemaker's jigsawed vision of the libation. The long lines and beer festival setting made it a bit difficult to get a clear understanding of the wine or a taste of all their different grapes. But what the festival did accomplish is a broad and captivating view into the expansive wine of Colorado. We had no idea what was being grown on the outskirts of our four-cornered state. We cannot wait to school our dates this Valentine's Day with our newly garnered wine knowledge.
Cheers to Colorado! A state dedicated to transforming their inhabitant's drinking habits into bonafide hobbies!
Lifestyle | Denver's Newest Booze-Based Festival
Denver event and marketing company, Two Parts, have teamed up with the Rocky Mountain Cider Association to introduce a craft cider festival to Denver this Saturday May 28th! The cleverly named “Pressed Conference” is a first-of-its-kind cider festival for Denver and features 15+ craft cideries from across the Rocky Mountain region showcasing the best pressed apples the region has to offer.
We can look forward to tastings from top cider makers, live music from Robby Peoples, lawn games (at last!) and Baba's Falafel and Keenwah food trucks cooking all day. All attendees will be greeted with a full tasting glass of Molly’s Spirits Barrel Aged Cider from Colorado Cider Company to welcome them to the festival.
Featured at the event are the following Cideries: Anthem Cider, Big B’s Cider, Colorado Cider Company, Colorado Common Cider, Compass Cider, C Squared Cider, Montana CiderWorks, Snow Capped Cider, Stem Ciders, Talbott’s Cider CO., Wandering Aengus Cider, Wild Cider.
We think this is a great way to kick-off summer, enjoy Memorial Day Weekend, and wrap up the first ever Colorado Cider Week! For more info and to purchase tickets visit the link below~
Saturday, May 28th from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. Highlands Masonic Event Center 3550 Federal Blvd. Tickets are on sale now for $40 and includes unlimited tastes and commemorative glassware.
