Partnering with the Aspen Institute: Montesquieu Winery Gears Up for a Second Summer in Aspen

We are pleased to announce the continuation of our relationship with the Aspen Institute, partnering for a second straight year to ensure that the Institute’s summer conference guests and donors will enjoy not only stimulating conversation but also delicious, hand-crafted wines compliments of Montesquieu Winery. Like last year, we will offer favorite selections from our international portfolio of Montesquieu Wines at two of the Institute’s marquee events this summer.

The first of these events is the Socrates Program Benefit Dinner 15th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday June 26, 2011, for which Montesquieu Winery will participate as the exclusive wine sponsor. The Institute’s Socrates Program was created to bring young emerging leaders from a variety of professions together in order to discuss and explore important contemporary topics of current political, ethical/moral, economic and global concern. (For more information on the dinner and the Socrates Society read more here.)

This year’s event promises to be fascinating, as it features Thomas L. Friedman, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author. Mr. Freidman will moderate a conversation with by Sonal Shah, Director, White House Office of Innovation, and Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, on the topic “Digital Disconnect: Innovations in Technology and the Impact on International Relations”. Socrates founders, Laura and Gary Lauder, will serve as dinner co-chairs, and Society of Fellows members and the event will honor Socrates Program alumni, Samia and Huda Farouki.

Later in the summer, we will attend the 18th Annual Summer Celebration Gala on Saturday, August 6, 2011 at Aspen Meadows, where guests will enjoy several selections from Montesquieu Winery. This is the Institute’s marquee fundraiser, as the guest list and slate of speakers makes clear. This year the gala will honor Brent Scowcroft, co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group, and national Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Read here for more information on this event.

At last year’s Summer Celebration, we donated wines for the reception and gala dinner – the 2005 I Campanili Toscana, 2007 Philippe Auchère Sancerre, and 2006 Montesquieu Derenoncourt Meritage were especially well-received by the crowd, which included event speakers Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State) and Khaled Hosseini (bestselling author of The Kite Runner).

One of the highlights of last year’s summer partnership took place just a few days after the Summer Celebration, when Stephen George and our winemaker Hélène Mingot had the opportunity to lead a group of forty Aspen Institute donors in a private guided tasting and seminar of nine wines selected by Montesquieu Winery. Entitled “Natural Winemaking and Terroir Expression: Tasting More by Doing Less,” the seminar gave attendees the opportunity to experience the distinctive qualities of the kind of transparent, non-interventionist grape-growing and winemaking that we favor.

We are looking forward to the Summer Celebration and Socrates Dinner again this year, providing some of our favorite wines for these fine events and partnering with one of the most respected, thoughtful and provocative organizations in the world. After all the best pairing for wonderful wines is wonderful company!

We’ll keep you posted with details after the events, so stay tuned! Happy summer, and cheers from all of us at Montesquieu Winery!

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The Aspen Institute at a glance:

Based in Aspen, Colorado, with offices in Washington, DC and elsewhere, the Aspen Institute represents some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers, and others from across the country and around the world. For over 60 years, the Aspen Institute has been the nation’s premier gathering place for leaders from around the globe and across many disciplines to engage in deep and inquisitive discussion of the ideas and issues that both shape our lives and challenge our times. Visit www.aspeninstitute.org to learn more.

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