by Claudia Itzkowich
TIME TO REVEAL THE CONTENT OF OUR GLASSES*!
With a culinary program like ours, it was to be expected that our selection of wines and spirits would be out of this world. For a reason!
Véronique Rivest, Canada’s Best Sommelier 2006 and Top 12 at the World’s Best Sommelier Competition 2007 and 2010, co-president of the Wine Program at the Cancun-Riviera Maya Wine & Food Festival, met Juan Carlos Flores Mazón and Sandra Fernández Gaytán, two of Mexico’s Top Sommeliers with two goals in mind:
• To craft the wine list that will be paired with the dishes that 7 Mexican chefs will cook for Ferran Adrià -and 300 guests- next Match 16 at the Live Aqua Hotel Cancun.
• To finalize the details of the impressive wine, tequila and mezcal tastings, where winemakers and winery owners from California, Chile, Mexico and Spain will probably leave an indelible print in the way our guests enjoy wine.
SOME OF THE MOST SALIENT DETAILS
• Daniel Milmo, owner of Casa Madero, the oldest winery in the Americas, founded in 1574 in Parras, Coahuila; and Hans Backhoff, sommelier at Monte Xanic, in the Guadalupe Valley, will be present at a tasting led by Mexico’s Best Sommelier 2004 Juan Carlos Flores Mazón; a journey through the different expressions of each of these regions’ terroirs.
• Paul Hobbs is the expert behind some of the best single-vineyard wines California has ever produced. In this seminar he will discuss with Top Sommelier Sandra Fernández Gaytán, CWE, CSW, CWP, the ways in which the best wines capture the richness of a certain terroir.
• There will also be a tasting of Nicolas Catena’s Chardonnay and Malbec: he was one of those pioneers everyone deemed crazy, but turned out to be the force behind Argentina’s wine industry.
Another tasting will be devoted to Lapostolle, named New World Winery of the year in 2008 by Wine Enthusiast, and a leader in organic and biodynamic viticulture in Chile.
• Straight from La Rioja, Spain, we will have Benjamín Romeo, the man behind one of Spain’s most spectacular wines, who usually prefers his terroirs to the spotlight. And there will be Josep Plana, also from Spain, export director of Mas La Plana, Torres’ most prestigious red wine and one of the most acclaimed by experts worldwide.
• Robert Mondavi was one of the very first to see the potential of California, and was hugely influential into making Napa one of the premier wine growing regions of the world. Discover here how his Cabernet Sauvignon evolves gracefully over the years.
• Our artisanal mescal tasting will be hosted by Mezcales de Leyenda, a company that works with a network of dedicated small producers in Durango, Guerrero and Oaxaca.
• With such a canvas, Mixologist Junior Merino, “The Liquid Chef” a pioneer in the fusion of the kitchen with the bar, will do his usual wonders at the After Dark Parties, the Catamaran Cruise Ship and the unbelievable Closing Party, where guests will be able to make up their minds between he Argentinean and the Brazilian mastery of the Grill!
• As for the bubbles, at events like the private dinner at Le Chique or the Yacht Cruise with Ferran Adrià, we will serve Taittinger and Armand de Brignac, whose Brut Golf just scored above Dom Pérignon; meaning it is the Number 1 Worldwide!
Details at: crmfest.com and facebook.com/WineFoodFest
