The festival commences with a trip up to the gondola for the Wine on the Mountain Kickoff Celebration. And celebrate we did.

Day two: Stroll of Steamboat Grand Tasting. The scene: Eight of Steamboat’s shops and restaurants open their doors to wine and food vendors—and lucky festivalgoers meander through at leisure, tasting and sipping all the merry way.

And of course no trip to Steamboat is complete without a little fun around easy and charming downtown. Brunch at Winona’s, a skip through the shops (including town landmark F.M. Light & Sons), trips to the rodeo and farmer’s market…

And  though parting ways with Steamboat isn’t always easy, the drive-home scenery makes the goodbye a little softer.

We’ll be looking forward to next year’s festival long before the calendar says “summer,” and we think you should plan to be there too. See more festival highlights at steamboatwinefestival.com.

Cress filled me in and said that business is good, and that even though it might not be back to where it once was, they’ve been able to start new projects in the past few months that have taken them into new neighborhoods, as well as start new business relationships (with New World Millworks, for example, who used to only deal with large high-end commercial projects.) Part of the reason Cress and Chris are still faring well in such a tough building economy is that they measure their success very simply by 100% customer satisfaction. They told me, “We remain friends with our clients, sometimes close friends, and you couldn’t do that if you didn’t feel like your clients weren’t completely happy with their homes.” Makes sense.

I asked them during dinner if it’s possible to complete a project on time and on budget–you hear so many stories on the contrary–and they told me that it definitely can be done, but that oftentimes their projects’ budgets are extended because their clients are exposed to far more detail than they know is possible. Once a client knows what kind of custom detailing is available to them, they often make decisions to increase their budgets and upgrade their design and finishes.

It doesn’t hurt that Cress and Chris are the nicest, most honest, interesting, and easy-on-the-eyes guys you will ever meet. If you are looking for a high-end renovation or custom-home builder, check out OGB’s work: oldgreenwichbuilders.com.