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Taste of Vail announces dates for 2007

CREATED: 2006-06-22 11:09 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Taste of Vail announces dates for 2007

VAIL, Colo. - Fans of great food, great wine and great fun now can mark their 2007 calendars. Organizers of the nation's premier culinary and wine festival, Taste of Vail, have announced dates for the 17th annual event next year: April 11-15.

"It's the best food and wine you'll ever see at a food a wine event," says Paul Ferzacca, owner and executive chef at Vail's La Tour restaurant, as well as a member of the festival's board of directors.

The Taste of Vail celebrates the Vail Valley's rich lifestyle - the fine dining, prestigious art galleries, shops and skiing that have made Vail a world-class, year-round resort. More than 5,000 attendees and volunteers participated in the four-day culinary extravaganza this year, with chefs from three dozen local restaurants and winemakers and/or owners of five dozen wineries from all over the world participating.

The Taste of Vail is perhaps the only event of its kind in which the chefs, winemakers and winery owners - and not their marketers or assistants - do the cooking and pouring themselves. The festival was created in 1990 by a group of Vail Valley restaurateurs as a marketing event to showcase the resort's world-class restaurants. Now the internationally famous community boasts more than 20 Wine Spectator award-winning restaurants - the most of any resort community in the United States.

This year, according to the 2006 Luxury Brand Status Index survey of arts and entertainment events conducted by the New York-based Luxury Institute (www.luxuryinstitute.com), Taste of Vail is ranked in the top three events in the United States in terms of quality, along with the New York Philharmonic and the Chelsea Flower Show.

Despite its stature among wine and culinary festivals and its reputation for haute cuisine, the Taste of Vail is a nonprofit organization. In the past 16 years, the festival has contributed more than $300,000 to Vail Valley Charities; and in 2005, in conjunction with Ritz-Carlton, the Taste of Vail donated $13,000 to the Hurricane Katrina relief fund.

This year's festival in April grossed record proceeds nearly 50 percent more than the previous high set in 2004. Proceeds are to be evenly distributed among the newly created Taste of Vail Educational Scholarship, a joint effort with ProStart and Eagle County; the Vail Valley Youth Foundation's soccer program; and other local charitable programs that otherwise would not be able to continue without additional funding. Final donation amounts are forthcoming.

For more information about Taste of Vail, visit www.tasteofvail.com or call 970-926-5665.

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Media contact:
Stephen Lloyd Wood, media liaison
(970) 949-9774
press@tasteofvail.com
www.tasteofvail.com