One of the most exciting gathering at this year’s festival was the Chambolle-Musigny tasting and seminar with New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov (above, right) and leading sommelier and author Raj Parr (left) — two of the leading Burgundy experts in the U.S. today.

Brett Zimmerman MS, founder of the Boulder Burgundy Festival (center), presented them at this year’s marquee event, which was held in the ballroom of the St. Julien Hotel.

As we’ve seen in years past, it’s always exciting to have such brilliant presenters for the seminar (last year, we were joined by Master of Wine Jancis Robinson and legacy Volnay producer Étienne de Montille).

But this year, the standing-room crowd of 150 + persons (including another leading wine writer, Jeb Dunnuck, and Master of Wine Ashley Hausman Vaughters) just seemed rapt by both the speakers and the wines themselves — an extraordinary flight of wines and styles from Chambolle-Musigny.

Where Raj delivered a superb talk on the appellation itself, including a virtual climb up the côte and his description of how the soils change from the bottom to the top of the hill, Eric offered invaluable insights into how perceptions of these wines has changed over a generation of Burgundy lovers. There couldn’t have been a more perfect balance between the technical and geeky, the sensorial and the intellectual.

What a great seminar!

We still haven’t lined up the speakers for the 2018 festival but this one is going to be tough to beat…

There’s a running joke each year at the Boulder Burgundy Festival. Ever since Master Sommelier Brett Zimmerman began inviting leading wine writers to speak at the gathering — Ray Isle (Food & Wine), Master of Wine Jancis Robinson (Financial Times), and this year’s keynote speaker Eric Asimov (New York Times), they all say the same thing.

“It’s my first time to Boulder and my first time dining at Frasca,” they all have said, “and I’ve come on the one night of the year that Frasca is a French restaurant.”

They are referring to the fact that Frasca, one of the most acclaimed fine dining destinations in the U.S., is actually an Italian restaurant with a focus on the foods and wines of Friuli.

Of course, it’s no secret that chef and co-owner of the restaurant Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson studied and cooked in France before his interest shifted to Italy and Friuli more specifically. He also cooked at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in California where he met Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey (above, right) who would become his business partner when they opened Frasca together in 2004.

So it’s safe to say that guests at the festival’s Saturday night dinner were in good hands!

It was quite an evening: Between an unbelievable selection of old and rare Burgundy selected by legendary importer Danny Haas (Vineyard Brands), keynote speaker Eric Asimov, and too many Master Sommeliers to count, the event was one of the festival’s best ever.

Photo by M. Thurk Photography.