7th Annual Garagiste Festival in Paso Robles!

This year marks  the seventh year of the Garagiste Festival in Paso Robles. The Festival, which also brings Central Coast wineries to Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Solvang, has its home in Paso where the first festival was held in 2011.  

Dubbed “one of the most exuberant wine festivals because of the thrill of discovery," and "Wine-tasting Nirvana” by the LA Times, the festival takes place in  Paso from November 10th to 12th 2017, at the Ponderosa Pavilion at the Paso Robles Fairgrounds and other area locations.  Over 60 local commercial garagiste winemakers will be pouring over 200 handcrafted, micro-production wines. 

Now a local institution because it benefits a special scholarship fund for the Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture program, it is the first and only festival dedicated to undiscovered and under-recognized American garagiste winemakers who are making some of the best, most exciting wines in the world. 

This year's festival includes a Grand Tasting, a Winemaker mixer featuring “Rare and Reserve" wines, intimate and educational tasting seminars, a Rocking After-Party, a Paso Passport Day and more.  And, like all Garagiste Events, the Paso Robles Festival offers attendees a low-crowd experience, high-quality wines, first-time and ‘soon-to-break-out’ discoveries, personal winemaker interaction, diverse grape varieties and a renegade and fun-loving spirit. 

Tickets:

info@garagistefestival.com / 805-769-8211 

Website: http://garagistefestival.com

Wining at year's end...

JD & the Goddess

Hard to believe it's the last week of 2012. The Goddess of Wine and JD have gone to lots of wine tasting events, lots of dinners, lots of gatherings, lots of wineries. There has been good wine and bad wine - some astonishing in both directions - and a lot of drinkable, but ordinary wine. We've made new friends, said goodbye to some old friends, made discoveries both personal and professional.

Wining with the Garagistes...

Having attended last year's Garagiste Festival debut at the gorgeous Windfall Farms outside of Paso Robles, I was looking forward to the 2nd Annual Garagiste Festival with great anticipation. As with the sophomore year of any project, some things were great and some not so much.

Organizers/Founders Stewart McLennan, Doug Minnick, Lisa Dinsmore, and Melanie Webber expanded the fest over 4 days, including winemaker dinners and other special events. JD and I chose to avoid the dinners (about which we heard nothing but praise), and bought the VIP package in order to attend the seminars on Saturday and Sunday.

Wining in general...

Maybe it's the unrelenting ugliness of the Presidential electioneering, or the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, or it's just that time of year when we reflect about where we are in our lives...despite some pretty wonderful people and things, the Goddess of Wine is feeling a bit low. [Note: Post-election day, feeling much better, thanks.]

Waiting for a wine bar to open in Burbank. We hope it will happen in December, but there are still details and discussions taking place at various levels, so it may not be for another month or two. When it does open, there is an opportunity for me to have a local spot to spread the good word about wine. Fingers crossed!

Have a couple of Wine Camp classes scheduled for LearnAboutWine in December for which I'm grateful, and yet, something feels anticlimactic at this point in the year. But enough with doom and gloom, let's talk about the wonderful and fun things I've been doing:

Wining thankfully...

Yep, it's that time of year again. Articles abound - what wine to pair with turkey, what recipes to use, what we're thankful for. Christmas music fills the air...etc.

I'm thankful, too. Thankful that I get to play in the wine biz - tasting great wines and delicious foods, hanging with winemakers and writers and enthusiasts, dreaming of the day I can put the day job aside and focus 100% on wine.

Sneak peeking at Paso Garagiste...

Photo by Xochitl Maiman

Made a last minute decision to hit the road to visit The Cellar in Santa Clarita last Thursday (10/13). Why? Because there was a special ‘sneak peek’ at a few wineries who will be participating in the upcoming Paso Garagiste festival on November 12th.

As I’m a big fan of Paso wines, and will be heading to the event next month, I thought I’d get a head start. I hadn’t been there in quite a while, so it was nice to catch up with owner DiMaggio Washington and his talented crew. The event was perfect – small enough to give me a chance to really visit with the winemakers (or their reps), and large enough to taste a bunch of wines!

Hang in Paso with the Goddess in November...

November 12th - It's the Paso Garagiste Festival! The Goddess and various friends will be there. Will you?

Here's the scoop:

Artisan Wine Trend Gains Momentum at Paso Garagiste Festival

Forty Emerging Winemakers Sign On to Pour at November Event; Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program to Benefit; Limited Tickets Available 

Paso Robles, Ca – September 14, 2011  – Paso Garagiste today announced that forty of California’s most cutting-edge artisan ‘garagiste’* winemakers are now set to pour at the first annual Paso Garagiste Festival: Celebrating the Artisan Winemaker to be held November 11 – 12 at Paso Robles’ Windfall Farms. A limited number of tickets for the festival, which will raise funds for the Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program, are now on sale to the public at pasogaragiste.com.