Wine, Wine and a Little More Wine

Last night the Puck Building was filled to the rafters with hundreds upon hundreds of bottles of award-winning Italian wines, hundreds and hundreds of sparking wine glasses at the ready, and hundreds and hundreds of food and wine writers, restaurant owners, wine industry insiders, sommeliers and foodies. To top it off, the Puck was gorgeously adorned - with loads of handsome, chic Italian wine distributors and vineyard owners.

Ahh...The Annual Tre Bicchieri Wine Event, a celebration of vino awarded the prestigious Tre Bicchiere (Three Glasses) by Italy's most authoritative wine guide, Vini d'Italia 2004 (Italian Wines 2004, edited by Slow Food and Gambero Rosso). Heaven to oenophiles or lovers of fine Italian men. Hell to those with fear of crowds or lovers of wine in a box.

Following what I call "The Epcot Strategy," after my posse and I dropped our coats at the coatcheck, we headed straight to the back of the Grand Ballroom to work the tables in reverse order. Needless to say, we barely made it out of the room to the other parts of the Puck before all the bottles ran dry.

Once our sipping began at about 5:15pm, we were quickly joined by a fellow food blogger who was charmingly inebriated (and who will remain nameless to protect the reputation of the not-so-innocent). Lucky for us, he is infinitely more knowledgeable about wine than yours truly, and even in his soused state (which admittedly was due to a Wildman Grand Tour tasting event at lunch combined with a "trade" 2pm arrival at this one) adeptly weaved us through the tables to hit the best of the bunch. Some of the highlights:

*Syrah