Tidbites | Week of September 3, 2015

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STARTING OUT ON BURGUNDY

Tickets for the fifth annual Boulder Burgundy Festival, which returns in October and celebrates the illustrious wines of the central French region, went on sale this week.

The festival is put on by Boulder Wine Merchant and celebrated at restaurants across town over the course of four days.

“[It] is impossible not to love the spectacular wines of Burgundy,” said master sommelier and Boulder Wine Merchant owner Brett Zimmerman in a press release. “The greatest tragedy of loving these wines is not tasting the great ones often enough. Selfishly, we thought hosting a Burgundy Festival would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate the wines of the region by tasting and sharing them with some of our friends, customers, restaurateurs, suppliers and producers.”

The celebration includes tastings and seminars led by some of the best wine directors in the country, and dinners from Boulder’s top chefs.

The festival starts with a champagne and caviar party on Thursday, Oct. 22 from 5-7:30 p.m. at CU’s Koenig Alumni Building. On Friday, OAK hosts a “best value Burgundy” wine lunch at 11:30 a.m. for $95.

On Friday from 1-2:30 p.m., three master sommeliers (Zimmerman, Jay Fletcher and Sean Razee) will lead an old and rare Burgundy seminar, which features wines from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. That’ll run you $295.

Then, throughout the weekend, you’ll find dinners and tastings at PMG Wine Bar, Frasca, St Julien and Flagstaff House. Tickets are available on a per event basis, and you can purchase them and find more information at www.boulderburgundyfestival.com.

THE HARDER STUFF

Spirit Hound Distillers in Lyons released its flagship product last week, a straight malt whisky aged three years in new, charred American oak barrels.

The distribution of the straight malt whisky was delayed about six months as the distillery cleaned up from the damage caused by the 2013 flood.

“Two years ago when our town got hit by the flood and our distillery was under 3 feet of water,” said Craig Engelhorn, head distiller and co-founder, “I was worried this whole thing might go down the drain. To finally be releasing this whisky and have it turn out so well, it’s very satisfying for us.”

The whisky features “aromas of oak and toffee,” with flavors of “caramel, turbinado sugar and light smoke.”

“My goal with the peat level,” Engelhorn notes, “was for it to be approachable enough for newbie whisky drinkers, but present enough to satisfy single malt scotch drinkers.”

Only five 53-gallon barrels were bottled, so head out quick for a tasting.

FISH TIME

Bradford Heap, the chef and owner of Colterra and Salt, is set to open his new sea food restaurant, Wild Standard, on Sept. 14 on Pearl Street.

The new restaurant is located next to Salt in the space previously occupied by PastaVino. It’s split on two levels, with about 100 seating capacity upstairs and 30 downstairs. The restaurant will also provide an atypical format — small dishes ranging from a couple bucks to $10 will be carried around on carts and trays so patrons can grab what they like.