I remember the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen before it was a classic. It was more of a social gathering. It was started by longtime local, Gary Plumley of Grape & Grain local fame, whom I didn’t know at the time because I was only two years past age 21 and still young enough that Carl’s Pharmacy met all my alcohol needs: Coors and Bud.

I noticed the event in 1985. My summer job was night auditor at The Gant. I thought it was perfect for me since I was in grad school learning about accounting and I also liked the idea of having my days free so I could ride my mountain bike, which was a brand-new sport few knew much about. There were no rules to govern where we could ride them, so we took them everywhere, but mostly up Summer Road on the face of Aspen Mountain. We lived, thankfully, and learned.

I thought I could adjust to the odd hours of coming in at 6 p.m. and shutting the office down at 2 a.m. after I got the daily numbers balanced on a flat sheet of ledger paper. The accounting part worked out, but I never got used to the odd sleep schedule.

But, I digress. The point is that a group of people stayed at The Gant and told me they were here for “food and wine.” Who isn’t? I thought. They described themselves as “foodies,” an expression I had never heard. All I knew is they liked wine, because they were constantly carrying bottles through the lobby.

I don’t know where they held their events. It wasn’t interesting enough for me to ask. All I knew was that they would leave sober mid-afternoon and come back drunk after midnight and head to the pool area to strip down and dip into the hot tub, which wasn’t ever an uncommon sight for the night auditor who did security checks of the grounds hourly after dark. I was supposed to kick them out, but figured they were doing no harm. At checkout they rewarded me with a leftover case of what was probably pretty good wine, which I invited a group of friends to join me in drinking from the bottle up on Smuggler around a raging campfire where the popular deck overlooking Aspen is today.

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