Riga Wine & Champagne Festival, March 9, 10, 2013
In the same way as gourmet festivals around the world, from Cape Town in South Africa to Sydney in Australia, are offering novel taste experiences to passionate foodies, specific wine and champagne festivals are helping wine aficionados in finding their favorite wines.
While wine festivals are traditionally linked with annual grape harvests, their urban counterparts are offering wine lovers and connoisseurs a great chance of savoring new tastes and deepening their knowledge in the realm of fine wines. Wine tastings, educational events and discovering secrets of how to match wine and food have become an essential part of wine culture nowadays.
Rigans, too, have long-deserved their very own guide to finding their favorite wines, and Riga, like any other European capital, is ready for taking a deeper insight into the universally well-known yet mysterious world of wine and champagne. At the same time, Riga doesn't hide its ambition of becoming a gourmet capital of the Baltic States, and the first wine, champagne and food festival "Riga Wine & Champagne" seems to be a perfect stepping stone to achieve that. "Sooner or later such a festival had to take place in Riga," says the festival organizer Aigars Nords "I was fostering this idea for many years and finally it materialized in the form of vintage and prestige champagne tasting, held at the restaurant "Bibliotēka N°1"at end of 2012. It was conducted by Peter Liem, one of the world's leading champagne experts, a founder of www.champagneguide.net, and it featured 3 outstanding sorts of champagne. We plan to continue this activity and turn it into an annual event, which this year will take place on March 9 and 10. Moreover, we would like to broaden its scope by attracting attention of Scandinavian countries as well."
The festival will be launched on March 9 with an event entitled the Bubble Parade, held on the top floor of the restaurant "Bibliotēka N°1". It will be the biggest parade of champagnes and sparkling wines ever taken place not only in Riga but in the Baltics in general. The Bubble Parade will represent approximately 80 French champagnes and 60 sparkling wines, starting with the ones with no indication of a harvest year to the finest vintage champagnes from 2002 yielding the best grape harvest in the last 20 years. Also the year 2004 will be widely represented by great champagnes, starting from Bollinger La Grande Annee 2004 to Taittinger Comtes De Champagne Blanc De Blancs 2004. You will have a chance to try Dom Perignon 2003 and champagnes from 1990s, too.
The oldest registered "representative" of the Bubble Parade for the time being seems to be Boizel Joyau de France from 1996. A great variety of sparkling wines will be available for tasting during the festival days as well - all in all, a genuine parade of excellence!
A special surprise for the visitors of the Bubble Parade will be gourmet hotdogs, crafted by "Bibliotēka N°1" head chef Maris Jansons. Such choice will add an amusing and democratic touch to the whole event, offering new flavors for foodies and perfectly supplementing the festival's fantastic selection of sparkling wines and champagnes. The idea has been borrowed from the current London cult bar "Bubbledogs" that features only small champagne houses and dishes gourmet hotdogs. "Riga Wine & Champagne" menu will offer hotdogs with stewed beef, foie gras, caramelized onions, venison, Greenland's shrimps and ginger crème as well as rosemary burgers with duck breast and Cumberland sauce.
Master classes "Vintage & Prestige" and "Masterpieces from the World of Wines" that will take place on March 10 will be led by Tim Wildman, Master of Wine from London and one of the leading European wine experts, with presentation of some of the world's most remarkable wines.
"Vintage & Prestige", in its turn, will be a degustation in the form of a lecture featuring 12 vintage champagnes and sparkling wines from so called vintage years. It will reveal what makes these beverages different from "everyday" drinks, will talk about variations between grapes and vintage years, champagnes of both aristocratic Big Houses and Grower houses, as well as reflect on the issue whether it is worth paying more for vintage champagnes and why.
"Masterpieces from the World of Wines" will present wines that are considered as "compulsory literature" from the Old and New world wine books. These wines will be split up in pairs, allowing to observe the differences between equivalent wines from the Old and New world, for example, French top class Bordeaux juxtaposed to very good Australian Cabernet Sauvignon, or an exclusive French Shiraz to classic Shiraz from the New Zeeland.
For the dinner "Eat, Drink, Vote" the chef of the restaurant "Bibliotēka N°1" Maris Jansons will work side-by-side with seasoned sommeliers in order to create the perfect "marriage" between wine and food. Maris Jansons has come up with a four-course meal consisting of goat cheese, duck liver, foie gras, veal cheeks and sea scallops. Wines will be matched with these culinary masterpieces by the best sommeliers in Latvia - Raimonds Tomsons (Restaurant "Vincents"), Janis Kalkis (Hotel Jurmala SPA) and Janis Gailis ("Bibliotēka No 1 Restorāns"). Your task will be just to savor and to vote for the most delicious combination!
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