ASPEN — More than 1,200 people took the Silver Queen gondola up Aspen mountain for one last run Saturday, a first since 1995 (when the mountain was open until June 25), while 5,000 more sipped wine and schmoozed at the 26th annual Aspen Food & Wine Classic.
Sure, the wait was long, for the lifts and the drinks, but no one seemed to mind. Lines for the gondola stretched several blocks as locals and a few celebrities took advantage of the last remaining snow and cloudless skies. Ivanka Trump and TV chef Rocco DiSpirito shared the slopes with skiers and snowboarders in bikinis, Bronco jerseys and one tutu.
Michael Murison was not one of those lucky thousands. The chef stood behind a hot grill on this 70-degree day grilling beef tenderloin for the hordes inside the tasting tent. But he didn’t mind. “This is the big one,” said the chef with Aspen Culinary Solutions, one of the local catering firms that keep this event cooking.
Guests who paid $1,150 a ticket waited outside the tasting tent in a line about two blocks long. Once inside, they sampled cocoa-and-chile-crusted beef, purple potato puree and caviar and trolled the tent, looking for famous faces (Bobby Flay, Padma Lakshmi, Ming Tsai) and tasting wine and food from 300 exhibitors.
You would think Mick Fleetwood was a rock star, the way people clamored around him . . . for a sample of his wine. The Fleetwood Mac drummer was in town to promote his “Private Cellar” wines and to play a show with his blues band in Snowmass. No, he does not plan to play “Rhiannon,” said Fleetwood, who is focusing on playing his older songs and making wine.
Meanwhile, Basalt resident Devin Padgett kept the 50,000 bottles of wine flowing and recycling in his 20th year as producer of this event. He’s well into planning 2009 and beyond, as the Classic is scheduled through 2017. “Coming to Aspen is like going to the Oscars when you’re in the food world,” said the former chef.
One of the most popular seminars features Bacon of the Month Club creator Dan Philips and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer, who take a nontraditional approach to wine and food pairing. This year, the duo served deli foods to teach a packed audience about which wines go well with smoked salmon, borscht and chopped liver. “Our point of view on wine is it’s really nothing more than a condiment for food,” said Meyer.
Today, “Top Chef” season three winner Hung Huynh will show the skills that won him the 2007 title in a cooking competition with French chef Jacques Pepin, Hawaiian chef Roy Yamaguchi, and “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio.
At noon, fest-goers will take one more spin through the tasting tent and the slopes, and then it’s back to real life. When they leave, Padgett and hundreds of local volunteers will recycle the bottles and paper plates, compost the food and take down the tents, leaving Aspen trampled and a bit hung over, but quiet.
For now.
Kristen Browning-Blas: kbrowning@denverpost.com or 303-954-1440.
