Food, wine festival taps new speaker

Master sommelier Barbara Werley will be a speaker, presenter and advisor at the inaugural International Food and Wine Experience of Charlottesville, which will take place Jan. 23 to 25 in downtown Charlottesville.

Werley, who is wine director for Pappas Bros. Steakhouses in Dallas, is one of 16 female master sommeliers in North America.

She is responsible for more than 33,000 bottles of wine in the restaurant’s collection, including one $70,000 bottle of Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. She also must provide continuous wine education and programs for the wait staff and patrons.

Before joining Pappas Bros., Werley was beverage director at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., a luxury AAA Five Diamond resort with a 227-year history. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, she began her career in the kitchens of the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago and the Jockey Club at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, where she began to focus on wine.

She also has served as wine director of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and has held positions at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix and the Homestead in Hot Springs. She also was an adjunct professor at Harrah’s School of Hotel Management at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

The master sommelier diploma is respected worldwide as a guarantee that the sommelier is among the most qualified in the industry, with outstanding tasting and evaluation skills and wine knowledge.

The International Food and Wine Experience of Charlottesville will feature about 100 world-class wineries, numerous fine-dining restaurants, gourmet foods, celebrity chefs, champagne breakfasts, 14 wine-tasting seminars, a live auction and a silent auction.

Individual tickets for the International Food and Wine Experience of Charlottesville will range from $22 to $35.

Grand Tickets remain available that include the choice of three seminars, a champagne breakfast, the Grand Tasting, the Blind Tasting, the Gala Dinner and the Sunday Brunch. That ticket is $735 with a two-night stay at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel or $559 without the stay.

Tickets can be purchased at http://www.ifweoc.com.