One of the most anticipated workshops at the Kapalua Wine & Food Festival was the Organic Experience with Google Chef Scott Giambastiani. He specializes in using local, sustainable, and organic ingredients, all buzzwords in today's foodie society.

But wait!! Before I could enjoy the day's festivities, I had to pay penance for last night. The Kapalua Resort has a beautiful two-mile coastal trail, right outside my door. Most of it is like a trail run, but a short portion looks like this boardwalk. It's very scenic and you can see a lot of people on it throughout the day.

And now, back to our regular programming: Sonya Mendez took this photo of me & Candy Suiso as we eagerly awaited the lunch to start. Note how we got the Google logo in the photo to thank the sponsors?

Hello, lover! That salmon medallion in the upper left corner was fabulous. We wished we could have eaten a whole filet instead of just a medallion, but...such is life. I could have eaten that duck breast bacon all day. And the goat cheese ice cream was a unique and delicious contrast to the zesty berry gazpacho. Heaven!

After lunch, we got to meet wine grape grower Gary Pisoni, "the new face of American Pinot Noir." He is quite a wild man and essential to any wine festival.

To clear our palate, we went on a wine "tour" but ended up staying at only one tour station! These ladies remembered us from the Grand Tasting last night, where they saw us gorging ourselves shamelessly on the brie. They didn't say those exact words, but mentioned the brie. Ooops!

I love blends. Vintner Greg La Follette of Tandem Winery makes some nice ones, and after tasting his wine I got to talk story with him. Cool!!

From there, Candy & I went to a workshop called "Raising Reislings from the Dead," in which we tasted six different reislings from around the world. My favorite, as always, is the honey-flavored Kabinett Reisling and Spaltlese, both from Germany. They did have some off-dry Reislings that were almost chardonnay-like. This is a great way to dispel preconceived notions about reislings and think about new ways to pair them.

After a quick disco nap, Candy & I went to a special media dinner at the Banyan House at the Ritz Carlton. However, the lighting was not conducive to food photos, so I can't share dinner with you here. Just take my word for it, it was fabulous!

We found the crew from KGMB9 on their own table. These guys can eat! I don't know if I saw them with wine glasses in hand, but I always, always saw them with a plate of something good.

Next: The seafood extravaganza.

Tags: Candy Suiso, Kapalua Resort, Kapalua Wine & Food Festival, KGMB, Paul Grieco, Scott Giambastiani, Shayn Bjornholm, Sonya Mendez

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.