The Sixteenth Annual Taos Winter Wine Festival Toasts Taos Ski Valley

For Immediate Release

For more information
Contact: Chris Stagg, Bret Helenius or Adriana Blake
505-776-2291 or email tsv@skitaos.org

The Sixteenth Annual Taos Winter Wine Festival Toasts Taos Ski Valley

One of the most highly respected festivals in the wine industry will kick-off January 23, 2002 at Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico and will run until February 2, 2002. Drawing more than 3,000 wine enthusiasts, the festival remains one of the key events in Taos.

The Taos Wine Festival has the distinction of only inviting the actual winemakers or vineyard owners to pour for the festival. The week is filled with daily wine seminars, winemaker dinners at area restaurants and is highlighted by the two Grand Tasting events. Some of the 40 well known vineyards that have attended in the past are Caymus, Joseph Phelps, Shafer, Calera Wine Co. and Domaine Chandon to name a few.

The premier events of the week are the two Grand Tastings on January 25th & February 1st, which have all the wineries pouring for tasters in one night. To accentuate the evening, restaurants from Taos Ski Valley and Taos serve some of their favorite dishes. �It�s an evening you can�t afford to miss� says Chris Stagg, Mayor of Taos Ski Valley. Each night of the festival has a wine dinner hosted by an area restaurant and vineyard. Courses are prepared specially to bring out the taste of each different glass of wine that is poured by the wine maker.

Many of the seminars allow up to 30 attendants and sell out. One of the more popular seminars, The Shafer Hillside Select Vertical, presented by Doug Shafer, poured six vintage verticals of Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 1991 through 1996, from his unique Stag�s Leap District vineyard in Napa. Other seminars compare different vintage years, as well as how to blend different wines. For more information on the wine festival, go to www.skitaos.org .