The 2nd Annual Portland Wine Week (website, facebook, instagram, twitter) is taking place June 17 – 23 at various venues across the city. 73 events are on the calendar. Here are some of the highlights:
- A grand opening Women in Wine dinner featuring 5 women chefs (Cara Stadler, Melissa Kelly, Ilma Lopez, Paige Gould, Shanna Horner O’Hea) and the 10 women sommeliers.
- Classes and seminars such as one on Rancio wine by Patrick McDonald and Lauren Clarke, and a panel discussion on “What Really is Natural Wine?”
- Numerous special events and tastings including the opportunity to meet winemakers like Brianne Day who will be at Maine & Loire and Cedric Guyot who will be at Eventide, as well as importers like Karen Ulrich from T. Edwards Wines
- There’s a Women in Wine track running through all 7 days of Portland Wine Week
- 22 wine lunches and wine dinners. A few highlights include a Chateau Musar lunch at Evo, a 4-course dessert and sherry tasting at Chaval, a 3-course dessert, port and madeira tasting at Gross Confection Bar, and a 5-course dinner at Lio featuring wines from Patricia Green Cellars
- And for those of you who want to enjoy your wine and work off a few calories too there’s a PWW run with Ned Swain as well as a Barre and Bubbles class.
- And a wide variety of non-ticketed events that you can take advantage of throughout the week.
- 25 restaurants are participating in a wine passport program
In short, unless you really don’t like wine at all (and really, how could you not?) there’s something for everyone in the PWW calendar.