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White, red and green: Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta offers fine food and drink
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Good wine, good food, good life.
That is what the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta embodies. This year the festival celebrates its 33rd year with wine tastings, luncheons, chef demonstrations, sommelier talks, a Sky Railway Wine Tour and a celebration of New Mexico chile. A handful of events have sold out, but there are plenty of events with tickets available.
“We host about 30 events during the five days,” said Mary Hallahan, executive director, Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta. “You can go to a cooking demo at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. You can go to a wine or food seminar over at the convention center. We do about 10 of those. We have guest chef lunches starting on Wednesday (Sept. 25). We do a fabulous, phenomenal lunch on Wednesday. We do a live auction luncheon on Thursday (Sept. 26), and then kind of have two large tastings that take place on Friday and Saturday.”
White, red and green: Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta offers fine food and drink
“Chile Friday: A Celebration of New Mexico Chile,” will take place from noon to 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, at Magers Field at Fort Marcy Park, 490 Bishops Lodge Road in Santa Fe. The walk around event will feature an array of dishes from esteemed Santa Fe restaurants, with each offering its take on incorporating chile from the Land of Enchantment.
Margaritas made with premium tequilas, and local craft beer, wine and cider will also be available. Each guest will receive a wristband good for 10 beverage samples.
“Sunday’s really fun too, because we kind of round it out with some outdoor events,” Hallahan said. “We do a golf tournament over at the Santa Fe Country Club. We do a champagne brunch up at the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado Santa Fe, and then we do a ‘Rosé All Day’ event at Bishop’s Lodge (on Sunday, Sept. 29). So it’s five days of food and wine experiences, and people can pick and choose everything a la carte.”
Hallahan said the average person usually attends at least two events, as well as wine dinners offered by various restaurants in Santa Fe.
“There’s a huge amount of wine dinners being hosted,” she said. “Those are ticketed and sold by the restaurants that are participating in Wine & Chile. And those start Tuesday, (Sept. 24) through Friday, (Sept. 27) during the Fiesta, and that’s really mission driven for us. We do not do any evening programming, and that’s by design.”
She added the idea of the wine dinners is to drive revenue and business to the restaurants during the evening.
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“It’s a really nice feature,” Hallahan said. “And this year, I think we have almost 34 dinners that are happening. There really is something for everybody.”
Hallahan said the Fiesta itself will feature about 75 restaurants from New Mexico and beyond throughout the week.
“We bring in about six guest chefs and those come from different parts of the country,” she explained. “So they sort of supplement and embellish our programming a bit. And sometimes we do partnerships between a guest chef and a local chef.”
She said some of the guest chefs will be participating in the Chile Friday event, including chef Hosea Rosenberg, owner of Santo in Boulder, Colorado. Rosenberg, who is a Taos native, also will be participating in the “Rosé All Day” event at the Bishop’s Lodge.
The Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta continues to grow from its inception in 1991. The event began as a one-day celebration with 20 restaurants and 20 wineries, according to the event website. It has now turned into a five-day event featuring more than 60 participating restaurants and 90 winery partners. More than 3,500 people attend the fiesta each year.
The mission of the event is to promote Santa Fe as a world-class culinary destination and educate people about the City Different’s restaurant and wine scene as well as support the local service industry and educate local youth about the industry through programs such as the Cooking with Kids, according to the event website.
The Fiesta’s live auction has raised more than $250,000 for the children’s organization that empowers children and their families to make healthy food choices through hands-on nutrition education with fresh and affordable foods.
