Taste what top chefs are cooking in Aspen at the Food & Wine Classic

ASPEN, Colo. — The wildflowers. The glamour. The celebrities. The seemingly unending bottles of champagne.

Welcome to the nation’s most exclusive food festival, the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, along with the accompanying Heritage Fire open-flame festival.

This is the kind of event where in a single seminar, participants tasted $10,000 worth of high-end wine. But what else would you expect from a class taught by author Mark Oldman called “How to Drink Like a Zillionaire?”

The Food & Wine Classic celebrated its 35th anniversary with tastings of 10,000 bottles of wine, from American rosé to South African bubbles, and everything in between. Held in the mountain town of Aspen and atop the surrounding ski area, Food & Wine brings about 5,000 people for more than 80 demonstrations, seminars and classes, along with a series of Grand Tastings featuring everything from caviar to cake bars.

Tickets — if you could get one, because they always sell out — started at $1,550, although even more exclusive events cost extra. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the parties, like the legendary “Wine at the Mine” event hosted by Infinite Monkey Theorem at the nearby Smuggler silver mine. Top Chef winners mingled with judges, enthusiastic amateurs debated the merits of canned wines, and private jets stacked up at the airport.

Among the celebrity chefs/hosts/personalities in attendance: DLynn Proctor of the movie Somm, now an ambassador for Penfold's, Katsuji Tanabe of Mexikosher, Alvan Cailan of L.A.'s Eggslut, Nina Compton of Compere Lapin in New Orleans, Peter Cho of Han Oak in Portland, Ore., Yoshi Okai of Otoko in Austin, Richard Blais, Graham Elliot and Gail Simmons of Top Chef fame, and legendary Boston-based chef and restaurateur Ming Tsai.

For many Food & Wine Classic attendees, the Heritage Fire event provided a break from the rich food and wine: At nearby Snowmass, chefs grilled whole pigs over open fires, skewered octopus with scallops and served boozy shave ice. In all, diners tasted 3,200 pounds of meat prepared by more than 30 chefs.

Click through the accompanying photo gallery for the sights and scenes of these exclusive events, including grilled oysters, salmon sushi and wine in the most beautiful of places.