Wine festivals flourishing

In Vino Veritas. In wine there is truth. The ancient saying has roots in multiple cultures in the old world. But there might be a question posed in Rhode Island in response to that venerable phrase: With more wine, is there more truth? It would appear so, or at least there is interest in finding out.

Over the past couple of decades of the restaurant boom, there has been an ongoing and seemingly endless quest to put on the next great wine festival in Rhode Island.

There are big glasses to fill around here. One of the most successful wine-and-food-tasting events in the nation is held each September at the Newport Mansions.

The wine-and-food festival that carries the mansions’ name has under the guidance of Food and Wine magazine become a must-attend event on the wine lover’s calendar.

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It has, however, been an elusive effort among event planners and producers to capitalize on the large number of winemakers and food-and-wine personalities from around the world who come to New England every winter to appear at the two wildly successful wine-tasting events in Boston. It would seem to be a great opportunity to ask some of the celebrities from the world of wine to take a trip down Route 95 and spend some time in Little Rhody.

The new management company at Hotel Viking in Newport heard opportunity knocking and has announced the Viking Wine Festival, to be held for the remainder of the winter at the hotel and its restaurant, One Bellevue. Plans are to have a festival event twice a month from January to March.

The Viking Wine Festival launched Jan. 23. Unlike the Mansions Festival or the Boston Wine Expo, with which there is no connection, the fledgling Viking Festival is actually a series of dinners and tastings held on a weekly basis for the duration of the winter.

In a brilliant stroke, the Viking Festival is structured to include many of the winemakers and personalities appearing at the Boston Wine Festival. The featured winemakers and experts will pair their wines with prix-fixe menus designed by Chef Barry Correia of One Bellevue. Correia is doing his best to craft menus that showcase Rhode Island’s harvests and flavors, no mean feat in the depths of winter, even the current one.

There will be a dinner matching food courses with the famed Opus One wines with wine-tasting expert France Posener. Other famous winemakers coming to Newport include Delia and Janet Viader, the proprietors of Viader Vineyards in the Napa Valley. The two women visited here during a Napa Valley Vintners Association tasting event in Newport in the early 2000s that was produced by local wine expert Len Panaggio.

This is a new direction for wine-tasting events and it appears promising. The Boston Wine Festival is now in its 27th season. It has become the nation’s longest-running food and wine festival. While the dictionary definition indeed describes a “festival” as “a special day or event when people gather to celebrate something,” Merriam-Webster also states that a festival is an “organized series of performances.”

Chef Daniel Bruce, founder of the Boston Wine Festival and executive chef of the Boston Harbor Hotel, had that idea in mind when he started his series in Boston nearly three decades ago. And the chef has some local connections. Bruce graduated with honors from Johnson & Wales University, then traveled to Italy and France for more traditional training. Upon his return to the United States, he became chef of the legendary New York City eatery “21” and in fact was the youngest executive chef in that restaurant’s history.

He wanted to return to his native New England and so came to Boston nearly three decades ago. Here’s to the sincere flattery extended his way by his colleagues in Newport and to staying the course. •

Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out talk radio show is heard on 920 WHJJ-AM, 1540 WADK-AM and on mobile applications. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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