Wine & Dine festival change spurred by virus
Normally held in January, event to be held Saturday
The Wine & Dine for the Arts festival, held on a January weekend since 2010, had its formula perfected: take over a ballroom or convention space for grand tastings with food from dozens of local chefs and samples of hundreds of global wines, beers and spirits, host a 500-person gala dinner, offer a few smaller, more casual events like a slider slam.
It worked, attracting about 3,000 people over three days and raising a total of more than $1.2 million over Wine & Dine’s first 11 years to benefit arts nonprofits, or an average of $110,000 donated annually.
Because the festival was held early in January, it was able to happen in 2020, unlike so many other traditions halted or profoundly altered last year. But the pandemic continued, COVID -19 cases surged again as fall deepened into winter, and Wine & Dine, planning only its second festival under new leadership, saw an opportunity. Board members knew they needed a fundamental rethinking of what was possible when almost everything that had defined the festival — people crowded into rooms for hours, waiting in lines, mingling, food buffets, sitting at communal tables with strangers — suddenly was either banned or at least a
really bad idea.
“It forced us to look at what we could do differently, into considering things we hadn’t thought of before,” said Marcus Q. Pryor, a veteran board member who became president after Wine & Dine’s founding members stepped down following the 10th annual festival. About 75 percent of the current, 14member board is new within the past two years, Pryor said.
The first festival event of 2021 is a virtual series called Wine & Dine and COOK!, launching at 5 p.m. Saturday with a live online cooking session featuring Food Network personality Aaron Mccargo Jr. Appearing remotely from his New Jersey home, Mccargo will work with popular Capital Region chef Ric Orlando and, representing the arts beneficiaries of Wine & Dine, Maggie Mancinelli-cahill, producing artistic director of Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany. They will be cooking from the demonstration kitchen at the Different Drummers Kitchen store in Guilderland, connected via Zoom link to Mccargo.
Audiences who buy web access to the fundraiser will be able to view the event, and follow along at home if they wish from a provided recipe, as Mccargo, Orlando and Mancinelli-cahill cook. Mccargo — who won a season of “The Next Food Network Star,” hosted “Big Daddy’s House” on Food Network from 2008 to 2011 and last fall joined the shopping channel QVC as a food host — will be making his AMJ’S Bold & Spicy Chicken & Sausage Gumbo recipe. A cocktail recipe will also be provided.
Tickets, on sale via the Wine & Dine for the Arts website, albanywinefest.com, start at $39 for an emailed recipe and viewing link. Three higher tiers of support for the fundraiser, priced at $69, $99 and $119, include additional amenities such as recipe and cocktail
ingredients, a gift bag and discounts and promotions from event sponsors. Viewing links with recipes will be available through midafternoon Saturday; packages with ingredients will be sold through the end of business on Thursday or while supplies last, Pryor said.
Once the Wine & Dine board had decided on the celebritychef route, they solicited names from an agent who specializes in placing food personalities with charity events and related appearances. Mccargo was on the list, and Pryor, who had followed the chef ’s career since “The Next Food Network Star,” championed him as the choice.
“His personality is bold and spicy, like his gumbo, and given where we are in America right now, with conversations about race and culture, we thought there was significant value in being able to highlight a chef of color in our first episode,” said Pryor.
“I appreciate that this was important to them,” said Mccargo, who estimated he has done about a dozen similar virtual appearances since the pandemic began.
Mccargo said, “Even as a celebrity chef, you don’t get the same opportunities if you’re a person of color. I look at a lot of the food channels, and it’s still mostly white people, lots of them men. You just don’t see many women or people of color, and I know it’s not for lack of talent. They’re out there, they’re ready to go, and they’d be great. We need more than just a little pepper mixed in with all that salt.”
Wine & Dine hopes the Mccargo event will be the first of a four-part series of virtual shows, perhaps with small live audiences as restrictions ease. The nonprofit will continue to explore ways to grow itself into a year-round operation, said Pryor. He will be part of Saturday’s show from Different Drummer’s Kitchen. Viewers will be encouraged to submit questions and comments. There will also be an auction and video segments.
The goal is for Wine & Dine to plan for at least one large, in-person festival again in 2022, depending on prevailing conditions, and to expand partnerships with restaurants and other food providers with online and in-person events.
“We know this first show won’t be able to make the $100,000 we did from the festival weekends,” said Pryor. “But if you figure that was $35,000 a day for three days, and this is just one day, we might be able to bring in about half of that $35,000, which isn’t bad for having to create something entirely new in just a few months.”
Between ticket sales, auction proceeds and support from sponsors including Robert J. Mcnamara Financial Consultants of Albany, which provided seed money for the virtual cooking show, and lead sponsor Bank of America, proceeds should begin building toward income able to support former grant levels to beneficiaries, Pryor said.
“We started off trying to round up sponsors like we’ve always done, but then we realized we didn’t have any to show them: ‘This is what we do.’ Because we hadn’t done it yet,” Pryor said. “The best way was to put on the first episode, and if it’s a hit, use that as the model going forward.”
He continued, “We’re seeing new ways of being a festival. There are so many different opportunities for us to be there for restaurants and the dining public while continuing to support the arts.”
First held in 2010, Wine & Dine for the Arts was founded by a group of restaurateurs and other hospitality professionals to offer financial help to area arts organizations affected by the cancellation of the longrunning Albany City Arts Grants program.