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A Taste for Travel Success
September 12, 2007
Culinary travel will give foodies the rewards they crave
By Jennifer Salerno
On an average day a food reward is a Snickers bar from the snack machine at 4:00 in the afternoon. We have all done that, and gone one better too: Looked forward to a great dinner after a hard day at work or uncorked a bottle of special vintage at the conclusion of a successful project. Food as celebration and reward is intricately and subconsciously woven into our daily lives and the human psyche.
Nowadays as the hectic schedules of business increasingly move people out of the kitchen, ideas around cooking and eating have shifted; what was once a daily responsibility is in many homes viewed as a creative and tasteful pastime. Sophisticated business travelers today are more informed about special cuisines, organic and seasonal eating, wine and spirits, and are interested in educating their palates about flavor. Some are so consumed by these pursuits that they have wine cellars built into their homes and kitchens, laden with spices from around the world. For them, culinary travel rewards trump any other experience.
Swanson Vineyards, Napa Valley
A typical American winery tour is often a crawl from one vineyard to another, then standing at a long wooden bar and filling one glass with a vineyard's several varietals. Seven years ago the family that owns the Swanson Vineyards—the same Swansons who innovated the famous TV dinner—decided that wine tasting should be elevated to a proper setting, with private seating and pairing with food. The Swanson Salon was created in Rutherford, Calif., beginning a trend of small, private tasting rooms throughout Napa Valley.
"The spirit of the Salon is to take exquisite care of the few guests we see each day," says Shawn La Rue, salonnier and director of wine education at Swanson Vineyards. "We like to make each tasting feel as if a cocktail party is being thrown in the guests' honor. The octagonal seating arrangement allows people to really connect and enjoy this experience over the course of about two hours."
Set in a room with 18th-century Parisian décor, the traditional eight-person tasting includes six or seven wines, each paired with a selection of savory bites. "Every palate loves certain combinations, like sweet and savory or sweet and salty," says La Rue. Each tasting includes three core wines that are distributed nationwide and three or four proprietary wines produced in small batches. The flight is combined with a selection of local artisanal cheeses as well as some imported from France, Switzerland and Italy. The minerally, acidic pinot grigio is paired with a delicate and salty American sturgeon caviar. The finale is the winery's Alexis cabernet sauvignon and a Vosges chocolate truffle lightly dusted with a four-spice curry.
The Swanson Salon offers three tastings daily from Wednesday to Sunday by reservation only. All Swanson wines are estate bottled, and the merlot is a stanchion of the winery's reputation. A few other varietals—sangiovese, sémillon and a petite sirah—are produced in just a few barrels each year. "People should come here and be prepared to taste world-class wines," says La Rue.
Nearby is The Carneros Inn, a resort of country cottages, each decked with a flat-screen TV and wood-burning fireplace, though the view of surrounding vineyards from each private garden may be more enticing.
 Sooke Harbour House, Vancouver Island
There is something about island living that even in these times of global sourcing and overnight shipping can make a person self-sufficient. The Sooke Harbour House, located on the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, B.C., has taken that virtue to an art form. Set on the shore of Juan de Fuca Strait looking out on the Pacific Ocean, the hotel grows thousands of herbs, salad greens, vegetables and edible flowers organically on its three-acre property. With a fierce commitment to serve only ingredients from the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, the resort offers an education to visitors in seasonal northwest cuisine, for which it has won numerous awards.
Each of the inn's 29 rooms is individually named and furnished with a balcony or terrace for ocean views. Accoutrements like fireplaces, luxury bathroom fixtures, bathrobes and a bottle of wine provide plenty of comfort.
"What goes together, goes together," says Sinclair Philip, co-owner of the luxury resort, speaking about the lessons to be learned there in the kitchen. "If the group wants to learn about cooking the fish they just caught, we'll bring them in the kitchen for a demonstration in cleaning. The chef will show them how to pair flavors from the garden that work best with the fish, like a lemony herb as an acidic point to buttery whitefish."
Garden tours with Master Gardener Byron Cook highlight a wide variety of edible plants and the benefits of organic produce versus the conventional kind. "Any of our staff is well-versed in the skill of organic gardening," says Philip. In the summer months, edible seaweeds become the focus of a hiking tour, and a honey farm and meadery are just five minutes from the resort. "The goal is not only to provide the most delicious eating experiences but also to change the way people think about their food."
The chef is so committed to the principle that he raises his own pigs. All the meat comes from local farmers. But the focus here is on fish, and most of what is served in the Sooke Harbour House restaurant is caught the same day from local waters. "We do import some things, but I think it's just coffee, chocolate and sugar," Philip says.
The wine cellar at Sooke Harbour House is also stocked with local wines. "Some people like to taste wines, which we do, but we also specialize in showing guests how to cook with wine and how to work with wine and food together. Our business guests are often interested in how to select one or two wines for an entire table—something that will go with everything. We can show them."
CIA Hudson Valley, New York
What's so great about a cooking school, you ask? The Culinary Institute of America is one of the most acclaimed cooking schools in the world as well as the oldest in the country. Just an hour and a half drive north of New York City in the farming region of the Hudson Valley lies what is for foodies an East Coast mecca for culinary pursuit. For cheese lovers, it is the perfect place to discover local and artisanal cheeses, sourced by great chefs like Thomas Keller, Charlie Palmer and Terrance Brennan, from farms throughout this region. According to CIA Industry Solutions liaison Jay Blotcher, "The CIA wine and cheese tutorial provides such unique alternatives that many of the cheeses cannot be found in local supermarkets." Thanks to a strong cooperative partnership involving CIA, Hudson Valley farmers, Cornell University and Senator Hillary Clinton's Farm to Fork initiative, this fertile region thrives with high-quality produce and products.
Of course cheese is not the only thing to do at CIA. The school offers a catalog of programs for corporate executives that can be completely customized. Hot seat, "thinking-on-your-feet" cooking classes and lectures on the science and history of food are the preeminent ways to elevate one's gastronomic prowess and also reinforce corporate objectives like creativity and cooperation. To top it all off, five fine-dining venues on campus, such as the elegant 75-seat Escoffier Room, are completely run by upper-level and graduating students, probably some of America's future great chefs.
Nearby in New Paltz are luxury accommodations at Mohonk Mountain House, a 265-room Victorian castle. Or, incentive winners can continue the CIA experience at the newly restored Smyth House bed and breakfast in Saugerties.
 Woodford Reserve Distillery, Kentucky
If you want to get to know the history of a place, one way is to follow the story of its beverages. At the Woodford Reserve Distillery in Versailles, Ky. (pronounced Ver-sales if you're from around there), the bourbon-making legacy has its roots in the Scotch-Irish settlers who came to America in the late 1700s. This small-batch distillery was founded in 1797, just five years after Kentucky became the 15th state in the Union. It is a national historical landmark and even today operates with copper-pot stills imported from Scotland. Aficionados of the red liquor can satiate their palate for all things bourbon here, in the limestone structures, blue-grass prairies and heady fragrance of mint in the air.
The boutique distillery, which produces 3,000 barrels of bourbon annually—as opposed to the 500,000 produced by parent company Brown-Forman's other whisky brand, Jack Daniel's—was the original location where famed Dr. James Crow developed the sour mash process and the liquor's storage in charred oak barrels. According to Sales and Marketing Manager Kate Welsely, "There are multiple options—from the discovery tour to the Bourbon Academy— which make the experience here educational, informative and fun." In addition to regularly scheduled reservation-only tours and classes, the distillery can accommodate specialized itineraries for groups of 10 or fewer.
Chef-in-residence David Larson, who has made special appearances at the James Beard House in New York, does demonstrations of his bourbon-focused menu as well as concoctions of the classic Manhattan and a proper mint julep. Tastings provide guests with the vocabulary to describe bourbon flavor attributes, and a "Mini Academy" course showcases a tasting of bourbon in three phases: "new spirit" before it is barreled, tapped from the barrel at three years and a finished product, which can be aged six to eight years depending on the master distiller's preference. Two private rooms—the distillery's former Scale House and its Dryer House—allow space for VIP programs.
The Rose Hill Inn, located right in Versailles, is a nicely appointed B&B with an award-winning breakfast. About 15 minutes away in Lexington, the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort & Spa has 409 guestrooms, and dinner is served in an antebellum manor.
Bike Riders, France
Bike Riders Tours, based in Boston and run by husband-and-wife team Eileen Holland and Lorenzo De Monaco, offers cycling tours for the gastronomically inclined. For the past 10 years the company has offered a series of tours called Guest Chef Adventures hosted by acclaimed American chefs, throughout Provence and Burgundy and in a few regions in Italy.
According to De Monaco, guest chefs lead groups of 16 or fewer on eight-night trips to share cooking tips, wine choices and explanations of ingredients from the region. A trip through Burgundy winds through the vineyards of the Côte de Nuits, visiting the historical wine villages of Puligny-Montrachet, Volnay and Pommard. Stops at places such as the famous chefs market at Chalon-sur-Saône allow riders to shop for local ingredients that are later prepared in traditional dishes like coq au vin and poulet de Bresse in an 18th-century château.
Though a Bike Riders tour requires some effort—daily travel distance covers 15 to 35 miles—the terrain is mostly flat and the pace is relaxed. The trip includes all meals but one, varying from a gourmet picnic of local meats, pâtés and cheeses to dinner in a three-star Michelin restaurant.
"The only requirement is a good appetite," says De Monaco. Guest chefs leading groups in Burgundy this year include Bradford Thomson, chef du cuisine of Mary Elaine's in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Tom Gutow, chef and owner of the Castine Inn in Castine, Maine.
Each Bike Riders tour includes accommodations along the route at several renowned and excellent hotels.
Contact Information
Swanson Vineyards
www.swansonvineyards.com
Sooke Harbour House
www.sookeharbourhouse.com
Culinary Institute of America
www.ciachef.edu
Woodford Reserve Distillery
www.woodfordreserve.com
Bike Riders Tours
www.bikeriderstours.com
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