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The Naples Winter Wine Festival, enjoying its top berth in this year’s Wine Spectator rankings of charity wine auctions, has busted out the big guns for 2017.
The group that organizes it, the Naples Children & Education Foundation, just announced that Wolfgang Puck—celebrity chef of celebrity chefs—will be the next festival’s chef de cuisine.
Although he hardly needs an introduction, here’s a quick highlight reel: He’s been on TV shows and hosted his own eponymous Emmy award-winning one; he’s the only two-time winner of the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef Award; he is the caterer for the Academy Awards Governors Ball; he manages an empire of some of the most critically acclaimed restaurants in the world, including Spago and CUT; and he is even a member of the Culinary Hall of Fame (who knew there was such a thing?). But what perhaps separates him most is that his name is the one we see everyday at grocery stores, in airport cafes and on magazine covers.
His role at next year’s wine fest is largely an honorary one—he, like all other participating chefs, will prepare a multicourse vintner dinner on Jan.27, the night before the auction. Puck has cooked twice before at the event, in 2007 and 2012, but this will be the first time he’s honored with this celebrated role.
For more updates on the 2017 Naples Winter Wine Festival, click here.
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