Posted on 26. Sep, 2012 by Johnnie in Chef Selection, Community News, Finding Perfection, News Flash, Restaurant News
?We look forward to the Cellar Classic each year. It brings together wine novices and aficionados, foodies, and industry locals all looking to raise a glass to this amazing world of food and wine.? Jonathan Horowitz, Partner; Chief Brand Officer, Lasco Enterprises
Event Breakdown
Stand back and get ready to enjoy: an estimated 1,000 corks are scheduled to fly this October as the San Antonio Cellar Classic provides wine novices and aficionados alike the opportunity to explore more than 80 delicious wines and some amazing food in a single weekend. More than 600 commemorative Riedel glasses await the opportunity to serve up fantastic flavors that will tease any wine lover?s palate. And if all of that seems too much, don?t worry: more than twenty ?wine guides? are available to ease you through the wine and food smorgasbord that is the San Antonio Cellar Classic.
This year?s event offers two opportunities to enjoy food and wine in two unique settings: a ?Reserve? Dinner on Friday, October 12 at MAX?s Wine Dive and a Grand Tasting on Saturday, October 13 at the Stable at Pearl Brewery.
The San Antonio Cellar Classic Reserve Dinner features an exclusive five-course dinner, compliments of the talented culinary team at MAX?s Wine Dive, led by Chef de Cuisine Clint Connaway. To complement the gourmet food offerings, you?ll hear the theories and motivations behind the wine and food pairings and learn more about the wine selections courtesy of MAX?s sommeliers. The event will be in MAX?s Wine Dive?s semi-private dining room and is limited to 40 guests.
The San Antonio Cellar Classic Grand Tasting will unfold in the Stable at Pearl Brewery, adjacent to the new Boiler House Texas Grill & Wine Garden location. Food at the Grand Tasting will be provided by MAX?s Wine Dive, Boiler House, and other excellent local restaurants. Providing the perfect live music backdrop to the affair, Los #3 Dinners will be back by popular demand to lend their legendary San Antonio surf-rock sound. Don?t worry ? there will be a dance floor!
Ticket to Try
Event ticket options for the Grand Tasting include General Admission and VIP. General admission allows guests to taste any of the 50+ wines from around the world while sampling MAX?s favorite finger foods, a preview of the culinary delights coming soon from Boiler House, as well as tastes from the other participating restaurants. General admission also includes a MAX?s logo Riedel tasting glass to take home, and a $20 voucher good toward the purchase of any of the delicious wines from the tasting.*
VIP ticket holders gain exclusive access to an elite tasting of an additional 25+ premier, limited edition wines and an upgraded ?premier? MAX?s logo Riedel tasting glass is yours to take home and fill with your favorite wine, which can be purchased with a MAX?s $40 voucher* included in your VIP ticket price.
*voucher good for wine purchases on event day only (minimum 6-pack purchase required)
Wine Wonderland Sneak Peak
San Antonio Cellar Classic will feature more than 80 wines across the Reserve Dinner and the Grand Tasting. The wine list offers something for everyone, from ?comfort wines? that you know and love like Silver Oak, Jordan, and Robert Mondavi Reserve, to ?discoveries and selections? for those who want to taste what the most exciting up-and-coming wineries are blending. A sneak peak of a few unique wines being featured include:
? Vicius Albar?io? Truly unique, this wine is aged at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The movement of the ocean helps in the aging process. There is also an ever so slight impartation of ocean salt water flavor that finds its way into the cork, and therefore in the wine. This gives the wine an amazingly addictive salinity. The result is maybe the greatest bottle of Albari?o wine you will find.
? Bending Branch ? This Texas winemaker is breaking away from the traditional varietals and offering grapes that are better suited for our Texas climate. We are excited to have just added these wines to our list and to showcase them during Cellar Classic.
About MAX?s Wine Dive
Quickly becoming a San Antonio tradition, MAX?s Wine Dive features an exciting combination of gourmet comfort food and 150 extraordinary wines from around the world, served in a decidedly unpretentious but chic ?dive bar? atmosphere. This juxtaposition makes MAX?s a completely unique dining experience that?s been part of San Antonio since 2010. Their mantra, ?Fried Chicken and Champagne??Why the Hell Not?!?? perfectly defines what MAX?s Wine Dive is all about: everyone?s favorite comfort foods, elevated to gourmet status, paired with the finest wines available and served until the wee hours of the morning in an industrial but comfortable ?hang out.? All of the wines at MAX?s are available by the glass and the bottle ? as well as ?to-go? to enjoy at home, and MAX?s staff is highly trained to help guests find the perfect selection from the list.
While it?s more a restaurant than wine bar, MAX?s has been voted ?Best Wine Bar? two years in a row by San Antonio Current; MAX?s also claimed multiple honors in the ?Best of 2012? list (Best Hangover Nursing, and appearances under Late-Night Restaurant, Brunch, Wine Shop, and Jukebox). The San Antonio Express News? Critics Choice Awards recognized Max?s Wine Dive for ?Best Fried Chicken in San Antonio? in 2011.
About Boiler House Texas Grill & Wine Garden
Slated to open in the fall of 2012, Boiler House Texas Grill & Wine Garden will be one of San Antonio?s prime destinations for food, wine and entertainment. Located between the historic Pearl Brewery building and the Culinary Institute of America, Boiler House will occupy a free-standing structure which still houses the boilers that powered the brewery. Constructed in the 1890s, the building is one of the three remaining original structures on the Pearl Brewery campus.
Boiler House will feature approximately 6,000 square feet of restaurant space along with an expansive outdoor patio. Most of the original architectural elements will remain intact, and the original boilers will be incorporated into the design and construction of the bar and kitchen areas. Adding to the dramatic interior architecture, a mezzanine is planned, which will feature private dining tables overlooking the bar and seating areas below. The patio will feature communal tables, a fire pit, and an area for live music performances.
The cuisine at Boiler House will be based on Texas ranch-style grilling ? with wild game, seafood, and the freshest local ingredients available. There also will be a late-night menu featuring smaller plates that are perfect for sharing. Items will range from grilled octopus, lamb meatballs, and pork spare ribs to a dry-aged New York Strip or 32-ounce Tomahawk Ribeye. These dishes will be paired with a wide variety of wines from around the world ? all competitively priced and all available by the glass. In addition, all of the wines will be available for take-home purchase through The Black Door, a ?wine community? concept first introduced into San Antonio by Boiler House?s sister restaurant, MAX?s Wine Dive.
?Black Door? Social Wine Website
The ?Black Door? website, operated by the elusive ?Mr. Black,? is a social and educational site focused on wines from around the world, gourmet food, related travel experiences, and more. Many of the wines described and reviewed there are available for purchase at MAX?s Wine Dive and other Lasco Enterprises venues. Designed to be more than simply an avenue to buy wine, ?Blacklist? members receive e-mail alerts on limited time deals as well as information on special events and other fun happenings. Those who sign up for the free ?Blacklist? program, receive weekly e-mails about incredible deals on delicious wines and information about limited time offers, special events and private wine tastings.
Because Lasco Enterprises as a whole purchases wine in large quantities (sometimes upwards of 15,000 bottles per month) for on-premise consumption, and because it is sold out of an existing business, there is no additional overhead added to the price of the wine. That translates into big savings for The Black Door customers who respond to the deals.
Executive Chef James Moore
Inspired by everything from foie gras to vodka, Executive Chef James Moore has a passion for food, wine, spirits and good music. Armed with more than 20 years of restaurant experience, world travel and knowledge of numerous styles of cuisine, as well as an insatiable curiosity, Moore adds a unique spin to the gourmet comfort food menu found at MAX?s Wine Dive.
Moore is an Alamo Heights High School graduate. While working at Pour La France under Chef Brian Dupnick, he realized he had a real passion for the industry and moved to San Diego to pursue his dream.
After working under Chef Kathleen Daelmans at Croce?s, Moore attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Working first under Chef Ross Browne at Absynth in the trendy theater district, and then at the Waterfront under Chef Bruce Hill, Moore concluded with an externship at the Cypress Club which turned into a full-time position after graduation. Moore then travelled Europe and settled in Tuscany to master the Italian approach to foods.
Moore finally found his way back to California, where he learned the art of Asian cuisine during a two-year stint as the Executive Chef at Wabi Sabi in Venice, before returning to the Lone Star State?Austin to be exact. Here, he served as the Executive Chef at FINO before ultimately landing back in his hometown of San Antonio.
Chef de Cuisine Clint Connaway
MAX?s Wine Dive Chef de Cuisine Connaway believes cooking is an art and feels that it?s his artistic outlet. ?I?ve always been creative, but never good enough to make a living out of it, except in the kitchen. Food is my palette of choice and I enjoy stretching what I do to create the unexpected.?
A part of the San Antonio culinary scene for eight years, Connaway joined the MAX?s team in 2011, working alongside of Executive Chef James Moore as the restaurant has continued to gain accolades. Connaway has worked in kitchens in Dallas, Fort Worth, Montana, the Hill Country and San Antonio, including seven years as Chef at Bistro Vatel where he worked with Chef Damien Watel. His background in fine dining brings classic techniques to play in MAX?s kitchen. ?Our environment is more casual, but we spend the same quality and care with our food as what you?d see in a fine dining kitchen. What we create is more modern and more relaxed, but it?s quality.?
Gaining European-training by working with European-trained chefs, Connaway?s experience includes training with world-renowned Belgian Chef Willem DeFroy at Sambuca?s in Dallas. He continued in the European-vein as the sous chef at Bistro Louise in Fort Worth, a restaurant recognized by Gourmet Magazine as one of the top 20 in the busy Dallas/Fort Worth culinary scene.
Connaway likes to surprise guests with the unexpected. ?It?s fun to see people enjoy new tastes and I like to shake things up: heat things up with spices, then cool them down with another nuance of a dish. When you look at food as art, you allow yourself to color outside of the lines. That?s part of what MAX?s is: fine wine in an unpretentious environment with food that doesn?t fit the description of fine dining, but is really good food. Rules are made to be broken.?
San Antonio Cellar Classic History
This is the second year for San Antonio Cellar Classic, an event based on the Houston Cellar Classic. That event began eight years ago in Houston at one of MAX?s sister restaurants, The Tasting Room Wine Caf?, and has grown into a five-day festival there which features events at all the different Tasting Room locations. MAX?s Austin location is hosting its third annual event this year, and Dallas will experience a Cellar Classic in 2013 at the MAX?s Wine Dive opening there in September, 2012.
A Good Time for a Good Cause
A portion of the proceeds from San Antonio Cellar Classic will benefit the Junior League of San Antonio, Inc. San Antonio?s premier women?s volunteer organization where women work together to build a better community through leadership and community service.
Founded in 1924, the Junior League of San Antonio consists of more than 1,200 women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. The Junior League supports agencies and programs that work every day to meet the rising needs in our community, making it the non-profit that supports other non-profits to build a better San Antonio. Through volunteer work and grants to more than 60 partner organizations, the Junior League benefits underserved women, children and families city-wide. Members of the Junior League contribute more than 10,000 hours of community service to the San Antonio community each year, providing much-needed volunteer support to organizations across San Antonio. To learn more about the Junior League, visit www.jlsa.org.
Formed in Houston in 2003, Lasco Enterprises is the parent company for MAX?s Wine Dive (Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas), The Tasting Room Wine Caf?s, Lasco Events & Catering, Boiler House Texas Grill & Wine Garden, and The Black Door, and now has more than 350 employees in four cities. Voted ?Best Wine Bar? two years in a row by San Antonio Current, and multiple honors in the ?Best of 2012? list (Best Hangover Nursing, and appearances under Late-Night Restaurant, Brunch, Wine Shop, and Jukebox). The San Antonio Express News? Critics Choice Awards recognized Max?s Wine Dive for ?Best Fried Chicken in San Antonio? in 2011. MAX?s Wine Dive San Antonio was also named a 2011 ?Best Places to Work? winner by the San Antonio Business Journal. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, Inc. 5000 named Lasco Enterprises one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. Lasco was named as one of the ?Best Companies to Work for in Texas? by the Best Companies Group in 2011 and 2012. The Houston Business Journal named Lasco Enterprises to its Fast 100 list of fastest-growing private companies in Houston in 2009, 2010, 2011 and in 2012. In 2009, the publication awarded Lasco the Houston Business Journal?s ?Enterprise Champion? award for the company?s commitment to its employees, the communities in which it operates, and for its contributions to its industry. For more information, visit www.lascoenterprises.com; www.maxswinedive.com. Like us on Facebook! Enter ?MAX?s Wine Dive ? San Antonio?. Or follow us on Twitter under ?@maxssanantonio?.
For more information:
Jonathan Horowitz
Chief Brand Officer
Lasco Enterprises, LLC
Direct Office Phone: 713-904-1972
jhorowitz@lascoenterprises.com
Valerie Grant
The CE Group, Inc.
Phone: 210-731-0764
Cell: 210-410-9899
valerie@cegroupinc.net
Source: http://www.flicksandfood.com/2012/09/san-antonio-cellar-classic-fast-facts/
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