Larry Perrine and Roman Roth.

Bridgehampton - It was everything everyone hoped it would be - and perhaps even more. The First Annual "Harvest East End: Wine Auction and Celebration of Long Island's East End" festival took place this past weekend with a wide ranging series of wine tasting events on both forks of Long Island's East End, culminating in a gala dinner and auction that raised money for both the Peconic Land Trust and East End Hospice.

Clearly, given the huge crowds that gathered at almost every event throughout the weekend, Harvest East End was an enormously successful event that may just have taken the Long Island wine community to a new level of cohesion and perceived quality and sophistication, virtues that some believe have been lost on many wine industry insiders.

"A great wine region needs a great wine festival," said Roman Roth, winemaker and technical director of Wolffer Estate in Bridgehampton. "It's not enough just to make our wine and sell it. We need an event that celebrates and supports what we do and creates awareness on a larger scale. None of us are going away any time soon; we're only getting better all the time."

Chef Tom Schaudel.

It is to Roth's vision of Long Island as a world class wine region that much of the creation of Harvest East End is owed, along with select staff at the Long Island Wine Council and the Long Island Merlot Alliance who were on board with Roth's idea. Landing the Wine Spectator magazine, perhaps the most powerful and influential magazine in the world of wine, as the presenting sponsor was key to the event's success according to Roth.

"Having Wine Spectator as the Presenting Sponsor certainly helped give our event a special flair," said Roth. "It put Harvest East End under a magnifying glass."
While the vast array of Harvest special events, which included private tastings, wine lectures, discussions of locally raised food and wine pairings and gourmet wine dinners in private homes, all by reservation, the weekend-long celebration was capped by a festival tasting and gala wine dinner and auction under tents on the bucolic horse farm in Bridgehampton owned by the late Christian Wolffer, founder of Wolffer Estate Vineyards.

East End Harvest, which will be an annual East End event, kicked off on Friday evening with a series of "10-Mile Dinners" held in individual homes and gardens hosted by their owners. Held in private residences from Cutchogue to Shelter Island, Southold to Sagaponack, the dinners featured wines poured from local wineries paired with a locally sourced meal cooked by a regional restaurant chef. Reservations for each Friday night private dinner were limited to 10 guests.

Angela LaGreca.

Celebrated chefs taking part included Eberhard Muller, former executive chef at Le Bernardin and Lutece in New York, who cooked at the vineyard home of Marco and Ann Marie Borghese, Christian Mir, chef of the Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue, who was in charge of the kitchen at Stanley and Susan Reifer's Bridgehampton home and James Carpenter, chef at The Living Room restaurant in the Maidstone Inn in East Hampton, who prepared a meal at the Daniel family residence in Sagaponack.

During the early part of the day on Saturday, a series of "wine salons" were held at wineries and other sites throughout the East End, and included hour-long educational and intellectual programs on wine-making, tasting, cooking, and other food and wine sensory topics.

The early evening focused on a "festival tasting of Long Island's bounty" where a grand walk-around tasting of 27 Long Island wines was held in a huge tent on Wolffer Estate's "Grand Prix Field" horse farm property. To accompany the local wines that were generously poured for nearly four hours were seasonal dishes by local chefs using regional ingredients with contributions from nearby farmers and food artisans. Celebrated Long Island restaurants who offered their inventive dishes - served on an oversized Japanese soup spoon - included such popular eateries as Almond, Fresno, Beacon, 1770 House and Estia's on the South Fork, and Amarelle, Jamesport Manor Inn, A Mano, Noah's and the Cuvee Bistro & Wine Bar on the North Fork.

Marco and Ann Marie Borghese.

Following the festival tasting was an evening gala wine dinner and auction hosted by Wolffer Estate winemaker Roth and NBC's "Today Show" producer and comedian Angela LaGreca, who entertained guests at the $275 per ticket sold out event with her stand-up comedy, often slanted toward the enjoyment of wine.

The vivacious LaGreca also commandeered the auction, which included barrels of various Long Island wines, hand painted wine barrels and furniture, bronze sculptures, leather fashions, sailings aboard private yachts, private jet transportation to golf and dinner outings and other inventive prizes. The highest bid, of $11,000, went for a Wolffer wine barrel chair by Maximilian Eicke, a young, German-born furniture designer now living and working in Sag Harbor.

Apart from the myriad bottles of Long Island wine that topped every table at the dinner and auction, was a three-course meal prepared by Gerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming of North Fork Table & Inn, and Keith Luce, chef and owner of Jedediah Hawkins Inn and Luce & Hawkins restaurant. Michael Vignapiano, chef of Fresh Flavors, prepared a vegetarian meal.

Wine never stopped flowing, music played and dancing went on throughout dinner, as the auction continued and winning bidders stood to heavy applause and flashing cameras from the audience. It was an evening and a weekend to remember and perhaps became a milestone in a burgeoning wine producing region not even half a century old.

Anthony Nappa, Barbara and David Page of Shinn Estate.