Moet Hennessy Vice President Michael Pelissier and Mark Barnes, owner of The Park at Fourteenth.
NORTHWEST -- Most connoisseurs of fine food and drink are naturally familiar with beverage giant
Moët Hennessy’s flagship luxury brands, such as Veuve Clicquot, Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, and, of course, Hennessy itself.
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Yet the company also produces fine wines from nearly a dozen perhaps less known estates scattered about the globe, from Argentina to New Zealand to Australia to the United States’ own Napa Valley.
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And on Wednesday afternoon, Moët Hennessy brought many of these special ‘Icon Wines’ to the District, during a special event designed to familiarize many of the city’s top sommeliers, beverage directors, and restaurant owners with the company’s full portfolio of beverages.
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The latest stop on what was dubbed the ‘2012 Winemaker Tour’, yesterday’s industry tasting saw close to a hundred guests from the hospitality and media industry crowd the upper rooms of the historic
Occidental Grill & Seafood restaurant.
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A well-attended seminar briefed the curious about everything from grapes varietals to the correct way to sample and judge a given vintage of wine, with platters of oysters, tuna, and sliders liberally scattered about as well-planned food pairings.
Moet Hennessy’s Michael Pelissier and Icon Estates’ Michelle Desrosiers.
Among the estates in attendance were Mendoza, Argentina-based Terrazas de los Andes, Marlborough, New Zealand-based Cloudy Bay, Chile’s Lapostolle, Napa Valley’s Newton Vineyard, and the Loire Valley’s Chateau de Sancerre.
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As
Robert Louis Stevenson might have said, “An afternoon of bottled poetry!”