High-end tippling for a cause at Passion Vin
PREMIER WINE-TASTING EVENT adds a third night, for women, to sold-out weekend
It’sthat time of the year again when Montreal becomes the wine capital of the planet; when city oenophiles forego the 5-S rule — swirl, sniff, sip, swish and spit — in favour of the no-spit 4-S rule; when quaffers rhapsodize about legs, noses and mouths — and they ain’t talking about women.
Get the goblets ready for the 11th edition of Montréal Passion Vin, one of the biggest of the big-ticket charity events in the land, which for the first time will be a threeday marathon. New this year is a gentler Thursday champagne soirée, preceding the regular Friday and Saturday swilling at the Bonaventure Hilton.
Those who worship at the altar of wine god Bacchus (or Dionysus, if you will) have been keeping their livers limber for the fundraiser’s — count ’em — seven different wine tastings, followed by the closing Saturday night banquet.
After the Thursday bash, the merriment begins in earnest Friday at 11 a.m. with an offering of five different champagnes from the renowned house of Taittinger. Fifteen minutes later, it’s lunch, orchestrated by Club Chasse et Pêche, Le Filet and Le Serpent, married with five of your grander Bordeaux vintages from Château Smith Haut Lafitte. There are two more tastings Friday, featuring six each from Domaine du Clos de Tart and Château Ausone. Imbibers start all over again Saturday with offerings from Domaine Joseph Drouhin, Masi Agricola (paired with a lunch provided by L’Orchidée de Chine), Dominio de Pingus and the finale blowout, which includes wines from all the weekend tastings and accompanying feast arranged by chef Jérôme Ferrerof Groupe Europea.
Then it’s time for a thorough liver cleansing.
But this is high-end tippling for a great cause: Montréal Passion Vin has raised about $8 million for the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Foundation. Proceeds from the last five editions of the event went to the hospital’s Centre of Excellence for Cellular Therapy (CETC). Starting this year, funds will be directed to the creation of the hospital’s $15-million Cancerology Centre. The centre will offer diversified and comprehensive clinical services for cancer treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care on an ambulatory basis.
Martin Gauthier, the new president of Montréal Passion Vin, is quick to point out that the cancer centre is not “a luxury, but rather a necessity.” His stats suggest there will be a 133 per cent increase in chemotherapy treatments and a 65 per cent increase in radiation therapy between now and 2019.
Gauthier hopes to raise a little more at this year’s Passion Vin than past editions, thanks to the new Thursday night gala, which was intentionally designed to attract more women.
“The vast majority of our patrons have been men. It has been rough for us to get women to attend two days of non-stop drinking, and we wanted to change that,” says Gauthier, 43, holding court at the sprawling Old Montreal offices of the ad agency Sid Lee, where he is a vicepresident and senior partner.
“The formula had been the same for the first 10 years, and it was amazing. But you can’t keep doing the same thing. We need innovation. For example, I thought we really had to find a way to bring women in here as well, and I think we might have done it with Thursday’s new champagne evening, À Votre Santé.”
The plan seems to have worked. All 300 seats for Thursday’s champers bash have been bought at $300 each. The cost for the Friday/ Saturday tastings and the closing banquet totals $2,500 and, despite the economic downturn, all 1,200 places for the entire event have been purchased — as is invariably the case here. A tax receipt does soften the blow a tad.
“It’s an expensive event — no question,” Gauthier said. “But these are gem wines and vintages rarely available for purchase here, and if they were they would cost patrons much more than what they are actually paying for. We would expand the event to hold more people, but often the wine producers don’t have enough product to serve more. Plus, in addition to the wines, we also have these three major food presentations Friday and Saturday.”
Gauthier claims Passion Vin is the “biggest” wine event in North America. “Some will say that’s not true, that there is a bigger one in New York. But why we are the biggest is that we are the only one to have access to the winemaker and the producer for the entire event. At other events, sometimes the winemakers and producers don’t even show up.”
What gives Passion Vin a distinctive dimension is that each tasting is overseen by its winemaker, who offers commentary and takes questions from the quaffers. Last year, the editor and publisher of the French wine bible La Revue du vin de France attended the event and in a subsequent five-page story raved that there was nothing like Passion Vin anywhere in the world, both from a point of the calibre of the wine and the way it is served by topnotch sommeliers.
The two tastings Gauthier is particularly pumped up about are Friday afternoon’s burgundy-delight Domaine du Clos de Tart and Friday early-evening’s Château Ausone, one of only four wines — including the magnificent Cheval Blanc — to be given Premier Grand Cru Classé (A) status in the Saint-Émilion family.
“They touch my heart,” Gauthier enthuses. “I don’t think I’ll be spitting out anything during those tastings. Honestly, I have spit a bit in the past, though not much. But in my capacity as president, I guess I’ll have to be a little more cautious this year.” Pause. “But just a little bit.”