Food & Wine Magazine Agrees to Sponsor Harvest East End Festival

One of the East End’s biggest wine-related charity events has a new sponsor.

Harvest: Wine Auction and Celebration of Long Island’s East End, now in its second year, said today that Food & Wine magazine has signed on as presenting sponsor. 

Last year, the event’s sponsor was Wine Spectator magazine, which opted out this year, said Donnell Brown, executive director of the Long Island Merlot Alliance, which is organizing the festival in conjunction with the Long Island Wine Council, the region's largest winery trade group.

The collection of events is scheduled for three consecutive weekends in September.

Brown said the organizers are in the process of establishing Harvest East End as a 501(c)(3) charity, "so we can funnel the proceeds more easily."

“We are thrilled to have Food & Wine on board as our presenting sponsor,” said event chair Roman Roth, winemaker at Wölffer Estate Vineyard and proprietor of The Grapes of Roth.

“Food & Wine brings a vibrant energy and enthusiasm to its events, and will introduce the Long Island wine region to a national audience that knows that good wine and good food go hand-in-hand,” added Roth, who is vice chair of the merlot alliance and vice president of the wine council.

“With world-class wine nearly 40 years in the making, abundant farm produce, fish and fowl, and renowned chefs now calling the East End home, the Long Island wine region is emerging as a viticultural and culinary destination,” said Food & Wine publisher Christina Grdovic. “The event is a natural fit and is a celebration of food and wine. We look forward to helping to build Harvest East End into the kind of annual destination event other Food & Wine events have become.”

Food & Wine sponsors wine and food festivals in New York City, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, South Beach, Hawaii and elsewhere.

The Long Island event will benefit East End Hospice, Group for the East End and the Peconic Land Trust with a live auction of Long Island wines. The organizers said 100 percent of the proceeds of the sale of up to 15 live auction lots will go to the charities.  The Group for the East End is a new beneficiary this year.

Last year’s event attracted hundreds of participants and the auction alone raised $75,000, but the beneficiaries split the overall net proceeds of the event, which was $60,000, Brown said.

Harvest East End  begins on Sept. 3 with educational seminars. Additional seminars, called salons, will take place on Sept. 10 and 17.  On Sept. 16, participants can join a variety of exclusive 10-mile dinners in private homes prepared by chefs and hosted by winemakers. The festival culminates on Sept. 17 with the Fall for Long Island Festival Tasting and Harvest Moon Gala and the live wine auction at Ludlow Farm in Bridgehampton.

Tickets go on sale on July 1.