Taste of Vail's Mountaintop Picnic a 'dizzying, dazzling affair'

VAIL, Colo. - Anyone who's experienced America's premier springtime wine and culinary festival would agree its signature event, the Mountaintop Picnic, is the ultimate in "haute cuisine."

Preparations already are underway on top of Vail Mountain, at 10,350 above sea level, for the annual culinary extravaganza, where extraordinary food and fine wines are on offer Friday, April 7, from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Amid spectacular springtime views of the Colorado High Country, it's all part of Taste of Vail, serving Vail Valley charities for 16 years.

"The picnic is a dizzying, dazzling affair," the Tampa Tribune reported from a previous Mountaintop Picnic. "Hundreds of happy skiers line up at the various booths as chefs in white toques dish up samples of grilled salmon, shrimp etoufee, buffalo chili and double chocolate torte as everyone mingles in the midday sun."

With chefs from 17 Vail Valley restaurants serving samples of their best dishes and winemakers and owners from 60 world-renowned wineries pouring their finest, the Mountain Picnic is "dazzling," indeed.

Picnic-goers with tickets can arrive at the picnic site - a one-of-a-kind snow arena west of Eagle's Nest with two-story-high walls for shelter - on skis or snowboards; or they can take the gondola to the top of the mountain free of charge, loading as early as 11:45 a.m. Snowcats, some with heated cabins, are on hand to shuttle picnic-goers between Eagles Nest and the picnic.

"This picnic is like nothing else I've ever seen," Doug Margerum, a California winemaker, told Wine Spectator magazine last year. "It unites wine and skiing, two of my passions."

Taste of Vail was created in 1990 by a group of Vail Valley restaurateurs as a marketing event to showcase the resort's world-class restaurants. Now the internationally famous community boasts more than 20 Wine Spectator award-winning restaurants - the most of any resort community in the United States. This year, as many as 5,000 attendees and volunteers are expected to participate in the 16th annual Taste of Vail, with chefs from more than three dozen local restaurants and winemakers and/or owners of five dozen wineries from around the world participating.

This year's Mountaintop Picnic is included in Taste of Vail's $375 Full Event package; tickets for the picnic can be purchased individually, however, for $110. Guests are encouraged to wear clothing appropriate for any conditions, as the Mountaintop Picnic goes on, snow or shine. Previous picnics have enjoyed sunny skies and unseasonably warm spring conditions; others have endured snow, high winds, hale, even lightning.

This year, the picnic offers up-close-and-personal glimpses of the newest luxury supercar in the Bentley Motors lineup: the new, continuous-all-wheel-drive, 12-cylinder, twin-turbo Continental Flying Spur.

"This is by far the best picnic in the world - without ants," says Kevin Foley, co-chairman of the picnic for the past 15 years.

Foley and his trusty co-chairman, Bud O'Halloran, supervise a crew of 30 volunteers on a mission of erecting the picnics various tents, tables and temporary kitchens in two days - then clearing it all off the mountain by dark the evening of the event.

"We put in a whole lot of work into a picnic that only lasts two and half hours," says O'Halloran. "And when it snows, things get really challenging."

Foley and O'Halloran proudly say the Mountaintop Picnic is the "best event" of the four-day Taste of Vail festival, April 5 through 9. It would never happen, however, without the help of Vail Resorts, which donates hundreds of man-hours, teams of snowcats and the use of the Eagle Bahn Gondola to the event, they add.

"The Mountaintop Picnic is a great tradition. In some ways, it's the community's official acknowledgement spring has arrived," says Bill Jensen, co-president of Vail Resorts' Mountain Division. "The Taste of Vail, in general, is a celebration of everything good about ski season. And it's the level of energy that makes it unique."

Taste of Vail is a charitable, nonprofit organization. Over the past 15 years, the festival has contributed more than $300,000 to Vail Valley charities. This year's proceeds will be evenly distributed among: the newly created Taste of Vail Educational Scholarship, a joint effort with ProStart and Eagle County; the Vail Valley Youth Foundation's soccer program; and other local charitable programs that otherwise would not be able to continue without additional funding.

For more information about the 16th annual Taste of Vail, or to buy tickets, visit
http://www.tasteofvail.com or call 970-926-5665.

Media contact:
Stephen Lloyd Wood / Media liaison
16th annual Taste of Vail
(970) 949-9774
press@tasteofvail.com
www.tasteofvail.com