Had a Blast …

Well, the 18th SOBE festival, which takes place mostly in South Beach, FL has come and gone, and what can one say, but what a lot of fun times, great eats and sipping were available down along Collins Ave and South Beach. Lee Schrager, the man who dreamed up the fest, was in attendance at a fine shimmy of an opening aft cocktail party.

Next night, the Fontainebleu Hotel’s main ballroom was packed to the gills with guests who seemed intent on either sampling the wines or the food. Sat aft dawned hot and sweaty when the staff finally opened the gates at noon.

American Airlines easily had the best lounge with real strong, white rum drinks and fine rare burger samples.  Right next door was the Wing Stop food truck that was dishing out wings and man, were they ever good, with my fav being the lemon, salt ones. A bit too salty, but rather have too much than too little.

And for laughs, had a great time conversing with a Cavit wine pourer who never told me his real name, but laughed when I told him that he reminded me of the actor John Slattery. And since he hadn’t seen Mad Men I had him in hysterics when I quoted some of Roger Sterling’s quips, like, “do I have to learn their names before I fire them.”

Next day I traveled down Collins Ave to the Eden Roc Hotel, where I got to sip and sample some unique and interesting sparkling wines from the northern Italian producer Ferrari Trento’s Matteo Lunelli …And following that tasting I went upstairs to the top floor where The Calling’s Theo Rutherford was tasked with explaining Sonoma wines and he did an admirable job, explaining the climate and region and why it produces excellent pinot noir and cabernet. My favorite was the 2016 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. After all the craziness of the past few days, it was fine to wind my SOBE experience sipping a very nice Pinot Noir from Sonoma, … here’s to 2020!!