Award winning wining and dining at Pago Pago, Westin Resort and Casino, Aruba

August 6, 2012/0 Comments/in Food, The Wine Ladies TV Show, Travel, TV (On Location), Wine/by Susanne Seelig-Mense

Aruba has become an incredibly desirable destination with so much to offer and to celebrate including an annual Wine, Food and Art Festival, held at The Westin Resort and Casino, Aruba www.thewestin.com/Aruba right up our alley!

Our home away from home is the Westin Resort and Casino, well known for their culinary program, with Pago Pago http://www.westinaruba.com/ArubaRestaurantsPagoPago one of their restaurants being awarded the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

Here we meet Executive Chef Matt Boland, responsible for all the restaurants and eateries at the Westin Resort and Casino. We quickly are taken with the enthusiasm Matt has for his craft, his mandate here and the island of Aruba captured here in our interview.

Georgia chats with Chef Bolland in The Westin Resort and Casino Art Gallery.

Pago Pago, where we will dine this week is the recipient of the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, which we will soon appreciate, and be dazzled with; a steady stream of creative and delectable recipes paired with a selection of wines from Napa Valley, France and Chile will grace our table.

Susanne enjoys the signature Coconut Jumbo Shrimp dish, while Georgia savours the surf and turf, accompanied by a Portobello mushroom and chocolate sauce lightly drizzled on succulent filet mignon. Two of the wines we particularly enjoyed was a Simi Sauvignon Blanc, from Sonoma County, truly delish, with fresh and seductive aromas of lemon and lime zest with mineral notes and a lengthy finish, as well as the Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon, layered, complex, rich with ripe fruit, amazing with the filet and sauce. Magnifique!

And incredible selection of deserts that topped off the evening just right! Wow what a night.

Aruba a paradise of sandy white beaches, sparkling turqoise waters, amazing food and wine!

Aruba Winemaker, The Wizard, Vincente Kock

Aruba winemaker, Meet The Wine Wizard, The Wine Ladies TV

August 1, 2012/0 Comments/in Celebrity, Drink, The Wine Ladies TV Show, Travel, TV (On Location), Wine/by Susanne Seelig-Mense

Aruba a paradise of sandy white beaches, sparkling turqoise waters, amazing food and wine!

August 1, 2012/0 Comments/in Travel, Ask the Wine Ladies/by Susanne Seelig-Mense

Aruba beckons… although small in size, just 30 km long and 8 km wide, this stunning Caribbean island is big on beauty, with long stretches of white sandy beaches, sensuous sparkling turquoise waters and gentle trade winds that caress and cool the skin while enjoying the rays of the tropical sun. We are returning to this incredible island, after many, many years, as our father’s identical twin started the very first hotel here, called the Manchebo Beach Hotel. Aruba has become an incredibly desirable destination with so much to offer and to celebrate including an annual Wine, Food and Art Festival, held at The Westin Resort and Casino, Aruba right up our alley!

Watch The Wine Ladies TV and our adventures in Aruba here.

We look forward to a having an awesome week of a little R&R, some fun and some seriously yummy eating…accompanied by some fine wines of course! All this with our friends, a group of five fun loving ladies who also happen to be quite the foodies!

`Aruba Good Morning in over 100 languages! WOW

We are welcomed by broad smiles and happy faces with an aim to please. The native “Aruban” speaks three to four languages, is friendly and engaging, “bon bini” is how you are greeted, followed with Bon dia, Bon tardi, and Bon nochi as the sunset approaches. This is the vocab from the local language here, Papiamento, a creole language derived from African languages and either Portuguese or Spanish, with some influences from Amerindian languages, English and Dutch. We met one local, Romeo who could say this in almost any language known to mankind! Check out this talented man here. It’s pretty cool!

Aruba… One Happy Island

We will soon discover, there is definitely fabulous food here, and they even have a winemaker on the island, sought after by international media, knocking on the barrel cellar door, anxious to discover and sample the wines made here in such an arid climate. How does he do it? Vincente Kock of Vino Vince, located in Santa Cruz, Aruba.