Join fellow alumni for this unique opportunity to meet Dennis Cakebread and
taste his award-winning wines from Cakebread Cellars Winery.
La Vecchia Cucina Restaurant, a winner of Zagat’s Award of Distinction and Award of Excellence,
is a beautiful, casual restaurant noted for its fine Italian cuisine.
The event includes a Tasting of Four Different Wines and a Four-Course Gourmet Dinner with choice of entree:
| RSVP early at Acteva for guaranteed seating |
This was a sold-out event last year! |
| La Vecchia Cucina Restaurant 2654 Main Street Santa Monica, CA 90405 (310) 399-7979 Parking is available next door at The Victorian, or just behind the restaurant at the public meter lots. More Info: Please contact Brian Saltsburg or 818-995-8729. |
Cost:
• $59 : On or before Feb 2/27 • $65 : After Feb 27 • $70 : At the door (space permitting) 6:15 PM: Registration 7:00-10:00 PM: Dinner and wine tasting |
Featured Wines
2004 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc is a near-textbook rendition of the variety's most appealing characteristics; aromas of lime, kiwi, grapefruit, gooseberry & hay introduce a medium-to-full-bodied palate of impressive weight, balance & intensity. The wine's vibrant citrus, guava & melon flavors benefit from a firm underpinning of acidity & a refreshing minerality that asserts itself in the finish, providing structure & counterpoint to the wine's rich fruit. This classic will provide great drinking pleasure over the next 2-3 years, on its own or with a wide range of seafood, poultry, & salad dishes.
2004 Napa Valley Chardonnay has lovely pear & ripe Granny Smith aromas with supporting mineral, baked bread & baking spice scents. Full & richly textured on the palate, the citrusy crisp, spiced-apple & pear flavors are enriched by yeast & toasty oak tones that extend into a very long, rich, minerally finish. Youthfully compact, with superb structure & an ideal balance of fresh fruit, acid & wood tones, this beautiful Chardonnay should develop in the bottle for another 3-5 years.
Cakebread Cellars 2002 Merlot, blended with 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, is an especially rich example of the variety. The wine is lush & full-bodied, showcasing luscious blackberry, plum & boysenberry flavors that segue into a long finish featuring an intriguing tea-like spiciness, elegant, refined tannins, & crisp underlying acidity. Delicious now, this lavishly flavored, complex Merlot will benefit from another 3-5 years’ cellaring.
Cakebread Cellars 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon boasts enticing aromas of ripe black fruits & dark chocolate, with lush, concentrated, blackberry, black cherry & black fig flavors. A supple structure of fine tannins is well-integrated with the wine’s ripe fruit & fresh acidity, leading to a finish full of rich dark chocolate & blackberry flavors. Delicious to drink now, this classic Napa Valley Cabernet should develop beautifully in bottle for another 5-7 years.
Cakebread Cellars
The Cakebread family is among the most creative & successful wine families in California's renowned Napa Valley. Since it was founded in 1973, the company has developed a reputation for producing world-class wines. Its success is built on quality, consistency & continuity - characteristics that apply equally to the vineyard, the wine, the people, & the operation of the winery.
Cakebread Cellars began as a small operation, & the family worked hard to build their reputation. Today, the family owns 75 acres of vineyards in some of Napa Valley's most desirable locations.
Through a close knit family & lots of teamwork, the Cakebread family produces an array of exceptional wines. Each family member contributes his or her talents to the business, Jack as mentor & CEO, Dolores as co-founder and SVP of Culinary and Ambience, Bruce as President and COO, & Dennis as SVP of Sales & Marketing. This teamwork has resulted in exceptional wines & tremendous success around the world.
Part of this achievement can be attributed to the Cakebreads' primary goal of providing the highest quality product to their customers. "We're constantly working to strengthen that bond & that loyalty," says Dennis. "After all, our customers are the ones responsible for our growth & success." The Cakebread's philosophy is focused on improving & increasing the quality of its wines in a slow, evolutionary style, vintage after vintage, so that people will continue to enjoy the wine & find it interesting & exciting.
Special Thanks to our Sponsor: Carl D. Jacobs Group, LLC
This event is underwritten by the Carl D. Jacobs Group, LLC a management consulting firm specializing in increasing organizational effectiveness through optimal organization, strategic deployment and motivation of its human resources. The firm conducts strategic organization analyses resulting in defining an organization’s mission and source of competitive advantage and the helps create a structure to accomplish that. The firm is particularly well known for creation of the compensation programs with emphasis on executive, management and sales incentives programs. Clients have included Chase Manhattan, Ford, Marriott, Oracle, GreenPoint and many others. Its principal has spoken throughout the country and been quoted in the Wall Street journal, LA times, Dallas Times Herald, Forbes, American Banker and Newsday and many professional journals.