Leave it to Austin to turn a sleepy food and wine festival into a massive party. I had last attended the festival (which was then called the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival) many years ago when you could still buy an individual ticket to the Grand Taste. It was held on Sunday afternoon and cost somewhere around $35 to $50 to attend. In 2012, the festival was bought by event company C3 Presents, who put on Austin’s biggest events including ACL Fest, in partnership with Food and Wine magazine and several local chefs and restauranteurs. The Festival has grown into a Thursday night to Sunday afternoon extravaganza with most of it taking place at Auditorium Shores save the evening events which have taken place at venues throughout town. As the programming has grown, so have the prices, with weekender tickets, which get you into the daytime events on Saturday and Sunday going for $250 a pop and the all-in tickets which include the nighttime events for $625. They have been selling out year after year, a testament to the quality of the programming. The daytime sessions are fun and informative, the food offerings are expansive, there is more booze than one could or should drink in a weekend and the dance party was second to none.
I could drone on about the minutiae of the festival, but I’m guessing you can find a whole lot of that elsewhere. Instead, I’ll share my favorite few sips, bites and tunes along with a few tips for next year.
- The wine focused sessions
–There can be some time spent waiting in line for the sessions, so I kept these to a minimum this year. I found them to be well worth the short wait as the two I attended each included four to six pours. Mark Oldman started us out on Saturday morning with “How to Drink Like a Billionaire.” Arriving on stage in an orange kimono for reasons unclear, he paced the stage with exclamations of “nugget alert” when he told us how to cheat the whole snobby wine system. The kimono was shrugged off and then we started to have some real fun. Mark taught us how to drink like a rich person for average Joe prices, and gave us a few pointers on how to throw the wine snobs off their game when tasting with them. We tasted wine through a red licorice straw and paired a port with a melty chocolate non-pareil (Texas heat was not taken into account). But, the highlight of the session for me was the live, audience participation demo of how to saber a bottle of Schramsberg Mirabelle sparkling wine. Mark handed out sexy blue goggles for the two lucky participants (I was one!) to wear, showed us how to find the seam on the bottle and then had the audience count us down from three. On three we slid the heavy saber up the neck of the bottle to knock off the top off the bottle with the cork, sending it flying, and ending with bubbly shooting all about and spilling to the floor. Seriously, it was just too much fun. Regrettably, I missed his Sunday session, assuming that the same wines would be served. Instead, I was told that the pricier and more rare wines came out that day. I pray he returns next year so that I can attend both days.
- A few of my favorite bites
–the fermented pork sausage from East Side King was the perfect sized, spicy bite finished with a pickled red onion slice and some crunchy nuts for garnish. Juliet offered up a beautiful tiny bamboo ramekin of crudo salmon, crispy fried capers, salted almonds and a splash of lemon. The salmon was melt in your mouth tender and the bite was perfectly balanced with salt, acid and crunch.
- Favorite sips–the sabered bottle of bubbly was a Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rosé which was the perfect start to the day. It was a gorgeous pink color, smelled like melons, strawberries and peaches and had a fruity and biscuity palate. Landmark Vineyards La Encantada Pinot Noir was my standout red. Sourced from the Sta Rita Hills AVA, this was a great example of Pinot from Santa Barbara County with juicy red fruits and well balanced with tannin and acid. The Kracher Beerenauslese from Burgenland was the sweet wine so nice that I tasted it twice. This Austrian wine is made from Welschriesling and Chardonnay and was dripping with notes of honey, ripe peaches and mandarin oranges.
- Favorite Tunes
–pretty much all of them as Austin’s own DJ Mel never disappoints. Mel spun all day both days and by about 2 each day had a crazy dance party going with his signature funky beats, always heavy on the Michael Jackson and Prince. The party culminated Sunday in an all out bacchanalian disco with Tim Love and other celeb chefs alternately downing shots and wine and pouring them into the mouths of the faithful from the stage.
- Pro Tips–1) I should have listened to Eater Austin who told me to bring wet wipes. There is a strange lack of napkins for a fest that serves a bunch of finger foods. 2) Drink water! It’s hot and there is a ton of booze. Don’t be the guy who had to be half-carried off the dance floor on Sunday. 3) If you can deal with port a potties, use them instead of the trailer bathrooms. They were the nicest port-a-potties I’ve been in and there was never once a line, whereas the trailer restrooms had generous lines throughout the day.