If it’s November, it must be Wine & Food Festival Time

I don’t know about you, but for me, fall is the best time in San Diego. The air turns a bit crisper at night, days are breezy and warm, and best of all, the Chargers are… ah, never mind about that. But most importantly, it’s the time of year for the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival.

I personally have been attending the event for the past eight years and covering the event for four; I have never failed to be impressed with the ever-increasing depth and impact the event has on San Diego. I tracked down Michelle Metter, a Partner at Fast Forward Events, the founder and producer of the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival a few days ago, right before things started to really get crazy this week.

The event runs the entire week of 11/16 -11/22.  

“The growth has been interesting,” Michelle recalled in our conversation. “We as a team wanted to start out very deliberately, so we spent a lot of time speaking with the city and Port District officials and several AVA’s before moving forward”. (For you non-wine geeks, that stands for American Viticultural Area; a designated winegrape-growing region in the United States). “So what started in its first year as an event drawing a few thousand people, with 30 restaurants and almost 50 wineries, will feature 100 chefs and over 300 wineries, spirits and beer purveyors this year,” she exclaimed with more-than-justifiable pride.

What’s also cool to me as a consumer, as a reporter of San Diego lifestyle trends, is the fact that Michelle and her Fast Forward team not only create quality growth with the event each year, but they have taken great pains to add many more fascinating layers, as well; each more in depth (and fun). This year’s big new event is called Sommcon. Ms. Metter describes it well. “For the past couple years we’ve been attracting more professionals as well as more serious wine enthusiasts. But we had to turn a lot of people away. So we worked very hard with top sommeliers in San Diego and elsewhere to craft and generate edifying content for all levels of wine enthusiasts, particularly those who are more serious.

There is simply no way to even start to list everything, so I would highly recommend you get online at sandiegowineclassic.com to get a full list of the many choices available. Then help celebrate twelve years at the West Coast’s most well-known wine and culinary celebration, which really has something for everyone, featuring cooking classes, tasting panels, celebrity chef dinners, and multiple tasting events showcasing San Diego’s fresh and flavorful food scene and the chefs that make it happen. I’ve been starving myself for two weeks, so I know I’ll be there.