Whether you are a skier, a food-and-wine lover or both, winter days and nights in the Rocky Mountains don't get much better than near Taos. Aside from some of the worlds' best skiing, Taos is home to more good restaurants than most towns 10 times its size. Doubly good news for the wine lover: The annual Taos Winter Wine Festival starts today and runs through Saturday in Taos and Taos Ski Valley.

Every January for the past 24 years, three dozen world-class winemakers have made the trek to Taos with their wines and skis. Most years, they bring the snow with them. Snow is in the Taos forecast today and Thursday, just in time for the events.

A unique aspects of the Taos Winter Wine Festival is that the winemaker or owner of each of the 36 attending wineries pours at the event. Often, it's the salesperson or distributor that pours. The casual Taos setting makes for an intimate and rare opportunity for wine lovers to meet and chat with the winemakers. The winemakers will be pouring at two events —The Reserve Tasting at El Monte Sagrado Living Resort and Spa in Taos, and the Grand Tasting in the Taos Ski Valley.

At reserve tasting on Thursday afternoon at El Monte Sagrado Resort, wineries will pour their best wines alongside 15 Taos restaurants serving food. Participating Taos restaurants include Doc Martin's, Lambert's, Love Apple, El Meze, Chef Damon's, Dragonfly and The Gorge. A silent auction of wine at the tasting benefits Taos High School's culinary programs.

On Friday, after skiing all day on fresh powder under the deep-blue New Mexico sky, glide into the grand tasting at the Taos Ski Valley Resort Center and enjoy multiple tastes from all 36 wineries. There will also be appetizers from Taos Ski Valley's top restaurants, including Rhoda's, Snakedance, The Bavarian, Sabrosa and the Bistro at Edelweiss, where Joseph's Table's Joseph Wrede is now chef. A silent auction of rare and large-format wines will benefit the Taos Community Foundation.

The cast of winemakers and owners attending the event is illustrious. Returning this year are longtime event supporters Josh Jensen of Calera and Michael Etzel of Beaux Frères, both masters of the pinot noir grape from their respective regions of California and Oregon. Some of Napa Valley's best cabernet sauvignon producers will be pouring, including Damian Parker, winemaker at Joseph Phelps; Bill and Dawnine Dyer of Dyer Vineyards; and Carl Jaeger of Robert Mondavi. Zinfandel enthusiasts can meet and taste with Ravenswood winemaker Peter Mathis, Kent Rosenblum of Rock Wall and Jake Bilbro, owner of Marietta Cellars.

Wines of France and Italy will also be featured at both events. Two of America's top importers will attend. Martine Saunier of Martine's Wines, Inc., will pour her great burgundies, and Brian Larky of Dalla Terra presents his Italian wines. Each importer will also be featured in the daily wine seminars starting today and running through Saturday.

This afternoon at the Taos Ski Valley Resort Center, Saunier will pour four different champagnes followed by four Grand Cru red burgundies. The seminar is a chance to taste wines in a classroom-style setting with the informative and well-spoken Saunier. On Saturday afternoon, Larky will treat guests to a tasting tour of Italy at his Giro D'Italia seminar, showcasing wines from six of Italy's prominent wine-growing regions.

Also on the roster is a vertical tasting of six vintages of Château de la Gardine Châteaunue-du-Pape, hosted by Paul Chevalier on Thursday afternoon. Carl Jaeger from Robert Mondavi winery will host a six-vintage vertical of his winery's legendary Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve later today.

An interesting comparison of two of Napa Valley's top cabernet sauvignon vintages will take place Friday afternoon with a panel of three producers. Damian Parker of Phelps, Dawnine and Bill Dyer of Dyer Vineyards and Crawford Malone of Pine Ridge will show their Napa cabernets from the 1997 vintage alongside the current release, the 2007 vintage. The stylistic change in Napa winemaking over the past two decades likely will be underscored. The 1997 vintage, declared as one of Napa's best when released 10 years ago, was indicative of the popular '90s trend of picking very ripe grapes, extracting them to the maximum potential and blending with lots of new oak. Wines from the 2007 vintage, from an atypically cooler vintage in Napa, exhibit a more recent trend of picking with less ripeness and vinifying with more restraint. That results in wines with more elegance and less alcohol.

The seminar schedule closes Saturday afternoon with one of the weekend's highlights. Josh Jensen, a pioneer of the pinot noir grape in California, will pour a horizontal of his Mt. Harlan single-vineyard wines. For more than 30 years, Josh has been fashioning what some would refer to as North America's best pinot noir from his limestone-rich vineyard, located about 2000 feet up Mt. Harlan in the Gavilan mountain range just east of Monterey Bay. Jensen makes six different pinots from six uniquely sloped plots at his Mt. Harlan vineyard. All six will be poured from the 2007 vintage.

Every night during the festival, restaurants in town and in Taos Ski Valley will take turns hosting winery dinners with the attending vintners. Dinner highlights include Sabrosa hosting Ravenswood on Saturday; Snakedance with Phelps Friday; and Love Apple and Poggio Salvi, and Chef Damon's and Fess Parker, both on Wednesday night.

With fresh powder pounding the mountain this week, each day of the festival presents a great opportunity to do some world-class skiing followed by some world-class wine tasting.

Greg O'Byrne is executive director of the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta and coordinator of the Taos Winter Wine Festival. Contact O'Byrne at vinevents@aol.com.

ON THE WEB

• For more on the 2011 Taos Winter Wine Festival and a full schedule of events, visit www.taoswinterwinefest.com.