Denver’s annual food and wine week just wrapped up and we were part of the fun at Saturday’s Grand Tasting event. This six-day culinary takeover is courtesy of Food & Wine Magazine and brings Denverites various opportunities to eat and drink, meet celebrity and local chefs, and enjoy exclusive experiences. The festivities begin each year on a Wednesday in mid-September with a curated “Dinner Under the Stars”, continue Thursday with the “Bartender’s Bash” cocktail competition and sampling, Friday you’ll find a fun happy hour at a top restaurant, and Saturday afternoon we recommend attending, “The Grand Tasting.”

With multiple covered tents full of food & booze, taking a moment in the sun to soak it all in.

The main event of DF+WF weekend is Saturday’s Grand Tasting where over 40 top restaurants showcase their best bites and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits provide over 700 wines and spirits to sample! Every type of wine is available to taste at the Grand Tasting, from high end reserves, rare wine regions, French Champagnes, to affordable favorites. DF+WF is the most comprehensive “wine tasting” in the state (aside from the prestigious annual Aspen Food + Wine Classic). For the true oenophiles, Denver Food and Wine created a Tasting App to help one navigate and take notes on all the fine wines. There are also QR Codes placed next to each wine for guests to learn more and take screenshots for later, and of course the educated Reps are there ready to tell you all about their products too.

If that weren’t enough to keep you entertained and buzzed all day, the Grand Tasting also features over 200 different spirits ranging from straight samples, liqueurs, and cocktails. We saw the following brands showcase their products with full footprints complete with a branded bar, tables, and decor: Aperol, Atlos Tequila, Chloe Wine, Five Farms Irish Cream, Grey Goose Vodka, Jagermeister, and TX Whiskey.

The food is of course the complimentary component to the copious beverages and one will find bites for all palettes created by Denver’s best chefs. This year’s favorite bites included Avelina’s truffle anglonotti, Kachina’s Fry Bread Taco & guacamole shooters, Hank’s Texas Barbecue Brisket, and the bruschetta from the high school students enrolled in the Colorado ProStart Program. These kids get involved every year manning their bites booths or assisting the celebrity chefs at the Culinary Stage. The Colorado ProStart Program is a two-year foodservice and hospitality management, culinary arts, and business entrepreneurship curriculum offered to high school juniors and seniors in Colorado.

Another big draw to the Grand Tasting is the opportunity to watch and learn from the masters; celebrity chefs and master sommeliers and mixologists hold seminars throughout the day. This year’s Wolf Sub Zero/Specialty Appliance Culinary Stage favorite was Jet Tila, a Culinary Ambassador of Thai Cuisine and Food Network star. Recently, Jet partnered with the Wynn Resorts to open Wazuzu, a groundbreaking take on Pan-Asian dining, at the Encore Casino and Resort on the Las Vegas Strip. Jet has also inspired and cultivated multiple concepts in partnership with the largest foodservice company in the world, Compass Group. Jet, along with his wife Ali, showed their captive audience how to make fried chicken and waffles complete with room temp butter, maple syrup and Sriracha!

Jet Tila with wife Ali and a few Colorado ProStart students

Proceeds from the event always benefit various charities and this year’s recipients are Kroenke Sports Charities, Denver Post Community Foundation and Colorado Restaurant Foundation as chosen by Southern Glazer’s because, “… they are an integral part of our community and reflect our core values while supporting the people that live, work and enjoy our Colorado lifestyle.”

DF+WF events are so much fun and generally more enjoyable than the other food & booze events that have taken over Denver. Everything is top notch, from the food and drink offerings, to the Riedel wine glasses everyone gets, to the layout, the quality interactions with vendors and attendees, and minimal lines (even for the restrooms!)

If you do it right, you’ll end up in bed early after the Grand Tasting. If you’re up for it, the final event is a Sunday Rise + Dine Brunch the next morning with bottomless Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s and tasty breakfast bites to wrap up the week.

https://denverfoodandwine.com/

Written by Tiffany Candelaria @TCdoesFnB & Photographed by Josh Stephens @freezerfilmfoto

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.

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.

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!

~ Tiffany Candelaria