Bottoms up!

Pa. International Wine & Food Festival, Sunday, Nov. 20, 1-5 p.m., 6-10 p.m., Monday, Nov. 21, 6-10 p.m., Genetti’s (77 E. Market St., Wilkes-Barre). Tickets: $20 advance at all Gallery of Sounds, Genetti’s front deck, event website and TicketSalesNow.com; $30 at door. Must be 21+.

Info: PAInternationalWineFoodFest.com

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

For many wines, the old adage of “better with age” rings true. A dusty bottle of a robust Bordeaux or merlot, a powerful port or a late-crop bottle of Riesling can be as sought-after as a Black Friday sale item and cost a connoisseur thousands.

But for Beaujolais Nouveau, the opposite rings true. Produced in France’s Beaujolais region, the wine is made from Gamay grapes and is the most popular vin de primeur, wines that are sold the same year they are harvested. They are fermented for a short period of time before being released to the public on Beaujolais Nouveau Day, the third Thursday of every November.

Banners declaring “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!” (“The new Beaujolais has arrived!”) became the day’s slogan as an annual race from the Beaujolais region to Paris with the new bottles of the wine became a national event. This marketing campaign was the brainchild of Georges Duboeuf, who is the founder of Les Vins Georges Duboeuf, one of France’s largest wine merchants.

The third Thursday in November has long been a national holiday of sorts in France, and for the 2011 vintage, that celebration comes stateside to Northeastern Pennsylvania Sunday and Monday, Nov. 20-21 as part of the Pennsylvania International Wine & Food Festival at Genetti’s in Wilkes-Barre.

“I want to bring something to the area that hasn’t been done before,” said Thom Greco, whose Rittenhouse Entertainment Inc. is presenting the event. Rittenhouse Entertainment has done events in Las Vegas and Florida; its first local event was the recent Lion Brewery Oktoberfest celebration at Genetti’s.

“Beaujolais Nouveau is a new wine, a fresh wine,” Greco explained. “They basically harvest it over the summer, bottle it and serve it without really fermenting it. You get the real taste of the grape without it ever being aged.”

The 2011 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau was described as a “fresh and fruity red wine” in a press release, and for the first time, the bottle will feature a graffiti-inspired label designed by Brooklyn artist Kaves. The wine retails for $10.

While Duboeuf’s Beaujolais Nouveau is a large part of the Pennsylvania International Wine & Food Festival, there are other components to the two-day event.

There will be cooking demonstrations by local chefs Shawn Jackson, Peter Adams and Maria Torrisi, wine and food pairings, a wine class hosted by Steve Pollack of PA Wine & Spirits and samples from several international and domestic vendors such as Clos Du Bois Winery, Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, Skinnygirl Cocktails, Svedka Vodka and more, plus food from El Rincon Latino, Cafe Italia, Piazza’s at Bentley’s, The Cafe, Oyster Seafood & Steakhouse, Genetti’s, Oyster Weddings and Lucky’s SportHouse.

“We’re celebrating all different kinds of spirits for tasting,” Greco said. “In addition, we’re having food from some of the area’s top restaurants. Plus, people will be able to talk to and get some secrets from these chefs.”

FROM ‘HELL’ AND BACK

Chef Torrisi of Scranton will be sharing her recipe for chicken Marsala.

“I was thinking it would be great because there’s a huge wine thing going on, and my Marsala is fabulous,” she shared. “I do enjoy that dish a lot, and it’s super simple. It’s a five-ingredient dish, and you don’t have to be a super chef to make it — and make it great.”

Torrisi, who works at Sharon’s Place in Scranton’s South Side, appeared on the seventh season of the Fox hit “Hell’s Kitchen” with Chef Gordon Ramsay, which aired in the summer of 2010. Though she didn’t win the season, Torrisi came away from the show with a different education than she got attending Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas.

“It’s kind of like the military — they beat you down, and they build you up,” she said. “It puts you at a different level culinarily — you have higher standards of your own food and of the food being served around you. It definitely taught me to show more interest in food than just ‘here’s the plate, goodbye,’ to take time to care about every single plate that left the kitchen.”

Torrisi did want to clear something up about the often short-tempered celebrity chef.

“Gordon Ramsay is the nicest person you ever want to meet outside of that kitchen,” she stated. “I loved his ability to teach and run a kitchen all at the same time. He never seemed to be distracted by anything.”

Facing Ramsay’s rage on the show didn’t spoil the possibility of Torrisi, who enjoys watching “The Great Food Truck Race,” “Top Chef” and “Iron Chef,” from possibly appearing on another reality food show sometime.

“I would do the ‘Food Network Star,’” she said. “I really enjoyed the TV aspect of everything, I didn’t even notice the cameras; I felt very comfortable.”

And if given the chance to one day have her own show, Torrisi would look no further than the food she grew up eating here in NEPA for her theme.

“It would be home-style, comfort-food family dishes,” she said. “There’s no real Northeastern show with the crazy stuff we eat. I love the taste and flavor of all these dishes that I grew up with.

“You can’t get food festivals like we have here, bazaars, a garlic festival — that kind of stuff just doesn’t exist anywhere else.

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