Am a recent transplant to Charlotte NC and saw that the Charlotte Wine & Food Weekend (http://www.charlottewineandfood.org/index.html) is coming up. Have any Berserkers in the Queen City been before? Is anyone planning on going to any of the events this year? Are the events worth it?
Be intrigued to know this as well
I missed this last time, would love to make a few events this time.
We’ve attended probably the last three (they’re put on every other year). I volunteered in 2014 and had a pretty good time but the new folks running the show now seem to have lost my contact info.
Looking over this year’s offerings, I’m a bit disappointed. Wine dinners on Thursday look good if not a bit pricey (I know, it’s for charity) but only three events on Friday and four on Saturday? Also, the pricing on the tastings seems to have gone up as well. I would also like a list of who is going to be pouring and if it’s the winemaker/owner or someone from the distributor. Seems like more of the distributors and less of the winemakers show up each time.
I seem to remember a quite a few more choices of events. What happened to the classes/seminars? I still remember vividly the Intro to French wines that Catherine Rabb put on, had some fun, learned a lot and tasted some really good wine.
Anyway, we’ll most likely grab one of the wine dinners.
Mike,
I am attending the kickoff dinner and auction tomorrow night at the Wells Fargo building. I will be traveling the week of the main event in April. We are hosting one of the Vintners dinners at our new restaurant, The Pump House, in Rock Hill.
I have attended in the past. i have lived here in Charlotte for 20 years, and consider the city a little behind as respects to how it views wine.
Up until 2 years ago, the Silver Oak dinner was the big thing for the vintner dinners.
I find the Triangle Wine Experience in Raleigh a much more progressive event. Mainly due to Eliza Kraft, who is a great benefactor, and has incredible ties to Napa(Juan,Pax, etc) Check out their vintner dinners compared to Charlotte.
Don’t mean to pooh pooh the event as there are some great charities. Hope you enjoy if you attend, and look forward to commentary if so.
Thanks Roger and Bob, each of your insights are helpful. Was curious what wines are poured at the tasting tent/gala and it sounds like they seem to be more distributor type wines an the small producers which I typically find more interesting. The vintner dinners do seem interesting and I’ll probably jump on one of them (being a transplant Patriots fan the Doubleback dinner is particularly enticing!).
Kelly, enjoy the kickoff dinner. I wish I had been quicker on looking into tickets for that, would love to have heard Eric Solomon speak about his career. I think its amazing what he’s done as a Charlotte-based importer.