The Crowd: Pacific Symphony wine festival raises $350,000

There is no doubt that the Orange County crowd loves a good glass of wine.

Recently, the Pacific Symphony held its annual Pacific Coast Wine Festival, attracting more than 300 patrons and raising an impressive $350,000 for the symphony’s artistic and educational programs.

The upbeat evening, held at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, featured an amazing array of wines collected from around the world. The sold-out wine-tasting party began with a spectacular tasting experience held in four different venues at the hotel that included a massive silent-auction setup.

The party was chaired by Greg Bates, garnering support from some very swanky auto dealers, including Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin of Newport Beach.

Bates was very proud of the wine festival’s success, commenting, “This wine tasting and auction is always exhilarating. This year we added a ‘fund a class act’ portion of the fundraising effort and raised an incredible $170,000 from this alone.”

More than 25 wineries and distributors participated in the event. As the crowd sampled their favorites, the Pacific Symphony Youth Ensemble’s jazz quartet set the mood.

A live wine auction concluded the opening aspect of the festivities and, in addition to offering rare and unusual vintages, auction items included a fabulous wine tour weekend in Paso Robles, Pacific Symphony box circle seats, luxury dining experiences at Orange County’s finest eateries and a chance to attend the Nashville Wine Auction.

When the bidding ended, the crowd was invited into the Island dining room for an over-the-top wine-paired dinner prepared by the Island Hotel Executive Chef David Mann. The hotel dining room was decorated with exquisite floral arrangements of white amaryllis, lavender, rosemary, olive branches and blackberries.

A first course of lobster bisque with tarragon oil was followed by a entree of beef filet with bordelaise sauce, paired with a delicious serving of sea bass. For dessert, it was a trio of toffee pudding, crème brûlée and cremeux.

Spotted in the dinner crowd was Pacific Symphony board Chairman Mike Kerr. A founder of the Pacific Coast Wine Festival and a wine collector himself, Kerr commented, “So many of our guests tell us this is their favorite event of the year. The wines are fabulous and the vibe is classy but relaxed. The festival is inviting to serious collectors, connoisseurs and casual wine drinkers alike.”

The Pacific Symphony celebrates its 38th anniversary this season led by music director Carl St.Clair. The orchestra is the largest formed in the United States in the last 50 years and has played a significant role in the cultural growth of the performing arts in Orange County. To learn more, visit pacificsymphony.org.

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A Nordic dinner In Newport

For some 45 years, Newport Beach residents Rita and Reed Sprinkel have hosted the annual Scandinavian Dinner at the Balboa Bay Club.

Rita Sprinkel, a native of Norway, creates an amazing Nordic dinner buffet featuring homemade recipes from her native country and delighting the large dinner crowd that comes to toast life and good fortune with raised glasses of Aquavit.

For weeks in advance of the Feb. 25 dining experience, Sprinkel works with Executive Chef Rachel Haggstrom and the entire dining staff to create the experience that begins with her special recipe of yellow lentil split pea soup. House-cured gravlax is presented with whole grain mustard, pickled cucumbers and boiled white potatoes. Icelandic herring is served with either dill and cream sauce or red onion and tomato.

In between toasts and renditions of Nordic folk songs, the Scandinavian love fest continued with an entree of house-made meatballs known as Kjottboller, poached salmon and pork tenderloin stuffed with dates and apples. Rita Sprinkel created Nordic desserts, including kransekake and Cringle.

Spotted in the crowd of friends, many of whom have been coming to the annual Scandinavian event for decades, were Catherine and Delane Thyen, Charles Carol, David Alderfer, Berit Mitchell, Kenny Abedini and Shooka Abedini, and Paul and Darlene Kuhn.

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The mother of all Easter eggs

A 400-pound hen laid the big one on the bay-front lawn of the Balboa Bay Club this past week.

A gigantic 8-foot tall, one-ton egg of pure white fiberglass was being painted with vibrant colors of the season by talented artists Devon Martin and Marilyn Wooten. It was a symbol of spring and rebirth to delight children of all ages attending the coming Easter Sunday celebration, a decades-long tradition at the Balboa Bay Club’s bayfront lawn facing the main channel of Newport Harbor.

Martin, a graduate of the ArtCenter College of Design, added the finishing touches by painting butterflies in flight in the tall stems of grass, painted by Wooten, amid the family of rabbits holding overflowing colored baskets of painted eggs and candies.

The enormous egg and children’s Easter hunt first appeared some 20 years ago and the original egg, which has required an entire parking space in the garage for year-round storage, was in need of full restoration. Onlookers watching the transformation inquired, “It’s beautiful on the outside, but I sure hope it’s filled with chocolate cream on the inside.”

We will have to wait until Easter Sunday to find out for sure.

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THE CROWD runs Fridays. B.W. Cook is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.