Nov 16 2008
San Diego Food & Wine Festival
So yesterday we went to the San Diego Food & Wine festival. The setting was beautiful, just behind Seaport Village. If I had to estimate, I would say that there were probably a good 3,000 people in attendance — not a bad feat at $100 a ticket. There were numerous wineries and food establishments sharing their delicacies with us.
The following is my critique of the festival itself: There were too many people for the small passages ways that lead to the main, open area in the back. There were some great wineries, as well as some not so great ones. It appears that the great ones either (a) didn’t plan accordingly or (b) didn’t plan on staying long – because they were out of wine. I learned later that a few of the great wineries came equipped with the minimal required amount of wine — 6 bottles. How does one get 3,000 1-oz (or even .5 oz) servings is a trick I would love to learn — but apparently so would they because, as I mentioned, they ran out.
I was really impressed with the Robert Mondovi pavilion and the Palate Cleanser people were a lot of fun. There were a few friends pouring their wines, which made it nice because I was able to catch up and taste their recent releases. And there were plenty of new wineries I had never heard of –of which some had great wine, others not so great.
It was nice to see this festival in action because I was able to see what we can do differently at our festival next year.
