San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival 2021

Awesome Again…

No doubt Covid was a real hard kick in the shins for the food and wine event industry. Most were cancelled outright in 2020 and if they tried to do anything in 2021 they were severely curtailed in terms of events and attendance.

But as the cliché says, the strong survive, and I’m happy to report, due to years of fantastic food and wine events over its 17 year history, the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival was packed with wine and food revelers eager to sample what the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival had to offer on its Grand Decant on Friday night and my fav, the outdoor Grand Tasting down on the waterfront the next day.

While I found the Grand Decant a little too packed and crowded at the Julep Building, it was great to see that there was a ton of wine and food fans who were eager to sip and sup. I don’t know if Covid has killed off all those big boats down on the waterfront where the festival used to have its Grand Decant, but if they could swing a booking with one of the them next year, it would ease the packed, overflow audience that the Julep building had.

But the waterfront park for the Grand Tasting hasn’t changed at all and it was deja vu for me all over again in terms of fun, great food, wine and booze tasting. Great to say hello to Mike Beatty from Howell Mountain Vineyards who told me he loved the recent post I had written for them and wondered why I didn’t say hello at the previous night’s tasting. Because it was too much of a zoo, I laughed which he returned and said to his pouring partner, this guy always asks for his first question, what did you have for dinner last night… Pure coincidence we have the same great taste in colors….

While I take what I write seriously, never want to take myself too seriously. So when I saw the San Diego Caricaturist sketching away, I had to sit down for my caricature for posterity. While sitting for the caricature I was sipping on numerous drinks and asked you don’t mind me moving?? Oh no.. I sketched kids for 15 years at the San Diego Aquarium, so I’m used to moving, you’re fine… hopefully I’ve captured your essence.. Should it replace my pic on my site?? Whaddaya think??

The festival was a great opportunity to Arrive at Awesome to hang out with friends, make new friends, see old friends, taste great food, wines and drinks and enjoy live entertainment in awesome locations with awesome weather.