The 2nd Annual Hamptons Wine & Food Festival is this weekend. The organizers have gathered a nice roster of celebrity foodies and wine experts this year, including Food Network personalities Sandra Lee and Dave Lieberman, wine experts like Josh Wesson and Mark Oldman, and Top Chef winner Harold Dieterle.
Last year, I didn't talk much about the event -- because they didn't have any local wines there. Instead, they got a big distributor to sponsor the event and poured those.
This year, however, they've changed that with local winemakers Kareem Massoud (Paumanok Vineyards) and John Levenberg (Bedell Cellars) on board as speakers and several other wineries will be pouring.
Sadly, other obligations will keep me from going, but there are some great classes and sessions planned.
We went two years ago when the format was ONLY local food and wine. AWESOME event. Then they changed the format claiming that attendance was low when it was all local. I'll never go back.
Why? Not just on principle - they should promote local fare and do better marketing, not blame the local selections. But more importantly - how do they define low attendance? When we were there, much of the food was gone in just over an hour and the crowd at most wine tables was 2-3 deep at all times. If that is low attendance, I don't want to be there when they "sell out."
Posted by: Jared S. | August 09, 2006 at 03:21 PM