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Ready to be wined and dined at the Don?
Abilities Foundation raised almost $200,000 this month at its 18th Wine & Food Festival. And there's more fundraising on the menu, with seminars, tastings and celebrity chefs.
By Chris Sherman
Published March 21, 2007
Abilities Foundation and its big-hearted volunteers and donors poured hundreds of wines and filled thousands of plates at this year's grand tasting at Tropicana Field - and they're still not done. Abilities, which supports people with disabilities, raised nearly $200,000 from 4,400 guests at the 18th Wine & Food Festival. This year Abilities added an after-dinner treat: an announcement that it plans one more course, an elaborate three-day food and wine festival at the Don CeSar Beach Resort from May 17 to 19. The event will include food and wine seminars, an Iron Chef competition and champagne parties with top local chefs and out-of-town celebrity TV chefs. For the big gathering at Tropicana Field this month, Abilities poured a wide range of wines, many affordable new labels seeking attention and established names such as Charles Krug, Jorge Ordonez, Masi, Merryvale and Toad Hollow. The best reds were blends, often in Rhone or Australian styles, such as Da Red pinot and syrah and Fifth Leg (syrah and mourvedre), and a growing amount of amarone and other husky Italians. Bright roses poses peeked out from Pink Truck, a Provencal blend of zinfandel, grenache and mourvedre. Best white was Hoya de Cadenas, a smooth creamy blend from Valencia, Spain. In other beverages, beers got a modest display, but coffee and water were in limited supply, surprising when both are competitive categories. Two dozen restaurants spread out around the field and in a new "young professionals" area. The treat of the night was perfect sauteed spinach with rich ravioli from Carrabba's, a rare big night out for a vegetable. For the May event at the Don CeSar, Abilities and Southern Wine & Spirits hope to duplicate the buzz and flash of Miami's South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which Southern also sponsored. Because of the size of the Don, the Tampa Bay area events will be more intimate than Miami's mass events. Schedules, prices and guest appearances have not yet been confirmed. Abilities' Frank DeLucia said TV chef Robert Irvine of Dinner Impossible, who is set to open a restaurant in downtown St. Petersburg, hopes to enlist other television chefs to appear. Two dozen Tampa Bay chefs, including the Don's Eric Neri, Chris Ponte of Cafe Ponte, Jeannie Pierola and Lauren Anders of Bern's and Outback founding chef Tim Gannon, have agreed to cook at various events. The schedule calls for a golf tournament and Iron Chef competition May 17, seminars, a black tie gala and a "Bubble Bash" sponsored by Perrier Jouet on May 18. The final day will include more seminars and tastings, a barbecue on the beach sponsored by the Outback restaurant group and a closing party at Cafe Alma. Contact Chris Sherman at (727) 893-8585 or csherman@sptimes.com. If you go Details online Schedule details and tickets sales information will be posted for the May 17-19 event at the Don CeSar at www.tampabaywineand foodfestival.com.
[Last modified March 20, 2007, 11:32:26]
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