September 24, 2021 Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta The Grower Champagne Tasting, The Grand Tasting and Dinner - PPI Salmon and Mixed vegetables Egg Foo Young
What a full day. It started at 7:30 with conversation with Amy. Then I showed Vahl Smith’s shopping app and coupon system, which I love. Once you obtain a Smith’s honored customer card you then go to its on line coupon and weekly special listings and click on the coupons you might use. Then when you check out at the store the app links your on line choices to the scanning device and the program registers the discounts you clicked automatically. No more clipping coupons.
We then got ready and drove to the Sweeney convention center for the champagne tasting seminar that was fantastic. There were 7 rather unchilled still champagnes at each place. The panel included three sommeliers and a representative of a large importer of grower champagne.
Grower champagne is produced by producers who generally grow their own grapes and make their own champagne. Their production is really small, usually fewer than 250,000 bottles, whereas the big champagne houses that produce tens of millions of bottles. The wines were elegant and yet varied in combinations of grapes, although most included chardonnay, and Pinot Noir and Meunier is becoming more popular.
After the champagne tasting we boarded a bus to transport us to Marcy Field Park for the Grand Tasting
When we arrived we were greeted by twelve large tents open on their sides. About 100 wineries and importers pouring wine and a group of 30 or so Santa Fe restaurants were offering food tastings. We started on one side of the main path through the middle of the tents and never made to the other side. There were 120 booths. Each winery or importer was pouring four to eight wines. We must have tasted forty wines and eaten at least 20 snacks when we reached our limit and I had to sit down in about two hours, which coincided with the point at which most restaurants ran out of food and we had tasted about 40 to 50 wines and at which point we were satiated with wine and food.
My favorite food item was a Korean restaurant that was serving Korean BBQ nestled in the middle of a soft steamed bun that one ate like a taco.
My favorite wine was the last one I drank, a Hanna Family Russian River Sauvignon Blanc. It was for full of fruit flavors including a light citrus flavor, that I immediately fell in love with it.
After two hours of constant eating and tasting wine we sat under a shaded pavilion for about 30 minutes during which time Suzette roamed into the other side of tents to fetch us bites of food and then we decided enough was enough and we should leave.
We made our way back to a bus that shuttled us back to Sweeney where we transferred to our car and Suzette drove us back home while I slept.
We arrived home at 4:50 and Suzette promptly went to bed and I read my mail and revised deeds.
At 7:00 I started watching Rachel and Suzette awakened.
Suzette re-heated the PPI Salmon and mixed vegetables and added two whisked eggs for one of my favorite quick dinners, a stir - fried egg foo young. Gooey and eggy with lots of vegetables and meat. A wonderful dinner.
We went to bed around 9:15.
Bon Appetit
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