Two Grand Events Highlight This Top Annual Happening
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger
There is special excitement in the air this week.
While some people are preparing for Thanksgiving, others are having a feast – as well as a treat – in one of America’s greatest cities.
It’s the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival, and its annually held on the third week of November. It is a series of culinary and drinking delights with special dinners, classes on food and wine with experts and pairings of food and drinks.
Those events are all a crescendo to the final stanzas, a symphony of sensational delights, the appropriately-named Grand Decant and Grand Tasting.
While most of the early-week events are intimate affairs consisting anywhere from one to three dozen people, the grand events are where everyone comes together in big groups.
The Grand Decant, held annually at the Marriott Marquis in San Diego Bay (you may know this event from its former name, the SommCon) is a wine tasting event extravaganza, featuring 100+ wines. Most are from California and the variety is almost as mind-blowing as the event itself.
This is followed the next day by the Grand Tasting. It’s an over-the-top event featuring wines, spirits, craft beers (pretty much anything you want to drink, quite frankly) with food from restaurants all over San Diego and North County.
Few wine and food festivals can brag about a finer location; this one is on a piece of land called the Embarcadero that sticks out into San Diego Bay. It serves as an entrance to the Marriott marina and looks out over arched Coronado Bridge. Many people take their food and drink and sit on the grass right up against the rocks, almost with their toes dangling into the water.
But what makes the Grand Tasting one of the “must do” annual happenings in San Diego is the atmosphere. It’s not one of those stuffy “swirl the wines and spit it out” affairs, but a loose, have-a-blast, enjoy-the-day events that is full of fun and cool San Diegans. And I love it.
This year, I’m going to a Sunday day-after event for the first time, something called Taco TKO. As anyone who lives in Southern California knows, tacos are one of the basic food groups here.
So I’m ready for the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival, I’m looking forward to it and, of course, I’m excited for it.
Cheers!
RELATED POST:
• 2018 San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival Top Events & Ticket Prices
RELATED LINK:
• Official Website & Purchase Tickets
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