King Estate to Rock Saturday Dinner

King Estate Winery, Oregon’s largest winery, is ready to show wine bloggers what it means to have a gourmet wine pairing dinner. So get ready for Saturday evening at the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference.

King Estate has been on board with bloggers for years and was a sponsor of both the 2010 WBC in Walla Walla and the 2011 WBC in Virginia. When they heard the conference was coming to their home state, they got on early and in a big way.

The winery is located 20 miles southwest of Eugene, almost three hours south of Portland, so when the folks at King Estate realized all the wine bloggers could not come to them, they decided they would come to us.

For Saturday evening, King Estate is not only providing the wine, which will come from its 1,033-acre, certified organic independently-owned estate. They are going further by having their executive chef, Michael Landsberg, actually create the recipes for the dinner. King Estate has a gourmet restaurant, farms its own 30-acre garden on site, and purchases cheese, beef, and even fish from producers who work just for King Estate.

But it doesn’t stop there. To ensure conference participants receive the quality product and service King Estate is used to delivering at its own restaurant, the winery is bringing north its own chef, cooking staff, and servers to prepare and serve the Saturday meal, in cooperation with our host hotel. (If you have dietary restrictions and haven’t told us, please email the WBC to let us know.)

As Director of Marketing Sasha Kadey told us, “We want to set the bar so high for the WBC Saturday night dinner that you will have a hard time ever matching it again.” The challenge is on!

But lest you think the folks at King Estate think this is about them, it definitely is not. Sasha also told us “We want the bloggers to know we at King Estate think they are important to the wine industry because they are supplementing, and even sometimes supplanting, the traditional wine press.”

King Estate is fully on board with the Wine Blog Awards, which will take place after the first glass of King Estate wine is served and just before dinner. They plan to produce a special micro-site on the King Estate website to give attendees access to recipes presented during the dinner. And most importantly, they plan to keep the talking to a minimum and the fun to a maximum during the evening.

So if you enjoy the meal, show them some love via your blogs and Tweets (@KingEstate). And enjoy dinner!