Wine Rendezvous Grand Tasting & Chef Showcase

The Wine Rendezvous Grand Tasting & Chef Showcase was held at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center last Saturday evening. This annual event is one of the best consumer wine and food events held in the greater Houston area every year.

This year more than 2,500 wine and food lovers tasted their way through imaginative dishes and hundreds of wines while chefs representing nearly 60 restaurants competed for Wine & Food Week's Waterford Crystal Chef of Chefs award. The competition was intense and the impressive culinary creations were not to be missed.

While guests sipped and tasted, Chef Robert Del Grande of RDG was inducted into the Wine & Food Week Chef of Chefs Hall of Fame. He was Houston's first James Beard Award winner in 1992. Kris Jakob, the executive chef of Culinary Institute LeNôtre, took top honors as the 2015 Waterford Crystal Chef of Chefs winning a $5,000 cash and prize package along with the highly sought after Waterford Crystal Trophy. The winning dish was a delectable Foie Gras Creme Brûlée with Ginger Snap Cookies. The first runner-up in the savory competition was Corner Table Executive Chef Ja'Nel Witt with her Summer Yellow Gazpacho, an heirloom tomato gazpacho with crab and cucumber salad finished with jalapeño honey. John Brazie, the Executive Chef at The Woodlands Resort & Conference Center representing Robard's, took the second runner-up position with his Candied Bacon French Toast with Champagne Pickled Cherry, Roquefort Ice Cream and Toasted Bourbon Syrup.

This year's event featured some of Texas' best wine along with California and European favorites, as well as a fantastic array of Champagne and other sparkling wines of the world. The impressive line up of wines features something for everyone and allows each guest the opportunity to try wines in a variety of styles from all over the globe and enjoy pairing experiences that they might not have ever discovered on their own. It is one of Houston's not to be missed wine and food events.

See My Photos of the Event Here

Comments

Lust Zinfandel 2007

My husband loves this wine so he purchased quite a few bottles at a recent Michael~David dinner that we had attended. Last night, I decided to open a bottle to serve with dinner. I was making a roasted southwestern pork tenderloin, sweet potato fries (w/ chipolte ketchup) and a salad consisting of baby lettuce (fresh from my garden) with strawberries, red bell peppers, red onions and walnuts tossed with a white balsamic-raspberry vinaigrette. This turned out to be a great pairing. It is a bold wine that really stood up to the strong chipolte seasoning while complementing the fruit flavors. I opened the bottle a 1/2 hour before I served it as I have found this wine to be more enjoyable when I do so. The Lust Zinfandel by Michael~David 2007 was a dark purple color with a ruby rim. It has intense aromas of very ripe mixed berries and baking spices-both allspice and ginger with hints of cedar. It has flavors of creme de cassis, milk chocolate and also more of the baking

Nocera - A Native Grape from Sicily

Nocera is a native grape from Sicily. It comes from the Messina province which is located in the northeast. Nocera is a quality red wine grape that is most known as a blender in the red wines of the Faro DOC. I had the opportunity to taste some pure versions (which according to Wine Searcher are rare) this week at a trade tasting held at Roma Restaurant in Houston. Wine production in the region dates back to the 14th Century BC, however, phylloxera decimated the vineyard area in 1881 leaving it at a fraction of its original size. The area boasts a Mediterranean climate with sunny days and coastal breezes, moderate rainfall, and mild winters, all ideal for grape growing. The Nocera grape is a bluish/black color and has a thick skin which allows for the production of structured wines with prominent tannins which are balanced by good acidity. High alcohol is common. Red wines produced from the grapes are an intense ruby color with purple highlights and aromas and flavors of dark fruits a

The Salta Tour 2012

Vine Connections and Pioneer Wine Company hosted a seminar and tasting event for Houston's wine trade and media at Backstreet Cafe yesterday. All but two of the wines were from the Salta Province of Argentina. Salta is the most northern wine region in Argentina lying close to the Bolivian border. The climate is very extreme due to the high altitude. Plantings start at 5,000 feet above sea level and climb to 9,000 feet, making these vineyards the highest in the world. The intense sunlight the area receives helps to create grapes with more anthocyanins, these are the color pigments which result in softer tannins, lower astringency and more intense flavor. The wines produced are extremely pure, concentrated and terroir specific. Torrontes Riojano which is considered the best of the three Torrontes clones is the most widely planted grape with plantings of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Tannat increasing. The seminar started with a tasting of four Torrontes wines, three from diff

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