Going back to the annual Aspen Food & Wine Festival is always bittersweet! Bittersweet because it is always an amazing experience and yet the weekend goes by in the blink of an eye! It is usually pretty tough to impress me when it comes to tasting wine in general since I am exposed to so many wines throughout the year. At this year’s Aspen Food & Wine Festival I did find a few wines that did just that.
The first wine that caught my attention was the Steltzner Vineyards Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District ’07. This wine has bright red fruit aromas that mingle with floral notes of violets and rose petals. There are subtleties of smoky vanilla and cream with notes of baking spice along with ripe fruit flavors of cherries, blackberries, and blueberries. I can only imagine this wine potentially being more amazing if it was paired with a porterhouse steak or a rib eye.
Another wine that I have to say blew me away was the Piper Heidsieck Rare Millésime 1988. This extremely allocated Champagne was like drinking a glass of crème brulee- so delicious! Notes of biscuit, honey and vanilla were apparent and the group I was sharing this wine at dinner with were all “ooing and awing” over every drop and sip- truly decadent!
Not to be out done, we also had the pleasure of drinking the Krug Champagne Brut 1988 side by side at dinner with the Piper Heidsieck Rare Millésime 1988. This Krug classic has an incredibly deep nose of sweet mousse, baked bread and roasted almonds. This stunning champagne has nuances of lightly toasted oak, yeast, earth along with green apple that shows stronger honey coated white and yellow fruits, mushroom, honeysuckle, lots of herb and toasted nuts. I savored every sip of both of these Champagnes with a Peekeytoe crab and avocado salad and I honestly had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t just dreaming this incredibe dining experience! 
My only regret after leaving Aspen was that I didn’t want the weekend to end. If I am fortunate enough to get to go back next year, I may decide to arrive a day early just to make the weekend last a bit longer.

Cheers to you, 

Brad Wermager