Ahhh, the main event – The Wine and Food Festival Tasting. This whole weekend was seriously a great way to say goodbye to summer and really embrace fall. The tasting event included over 50 different wine vendors from all over, including Italy, New York State, California, etc. In addition to the wine, there were over 10 food vendors from some of the best restaurants in Saratoga. Sipping wine, snacking on delicious food, how can anyone pass up this event? It’s honestly the best.
The morning started off with the Adirondack Appliance Iron Chef Competition, and from there I went straight over to the tasting event.
When you arrive, you’re given a Saratoga Wine and Food Festival glass to use as you taste the wines. Booths are set up everywhere so literally every way you turn there’s wine or food. From sparkling to traditional, blended drinks to cocktails, there’s bound to be something that excites you. A personal favorite of mine is the Solerno Bellini using their blood orange liqueur that was featured at the festival. It’s a mixture of solerno, blood orange puree or juice and prosecco. It was such a nice, refreshing drink and a nice change of pace from your traditional red and white wines.
With restaurants like Prime, Hattie’s, Fifty South and Elizabeth’s Table, there was such a wide variety there to please everyone’s tastes!
Fish Tacos from Bellini’s
The filling in the tacos was actually quite good however the shell was very difficult to eat it, making me look like a savage trying to take a bite out of it. Looking at it, you’d think it would be crunchy and crispy enough to just break apart, but that wasn’t the case.
Something Spicy Burger from Druthers
All hail the something spicy burger. This burger was packed with punches of flavors and the heat was on point. If you’re going to call something spicy, it better make your mouth and lips have a slight burn for several minutes following the consumption of it. This definitely did. Druthers was handing out hefty portions of these burgers, along with their Given Your Druthers Burger and pulled pork sandwich, which all looked great as well.
I give Druthers credit for joining the restaurants at the Wine and Food Festival this year and seriously kicking butt. It’s not often you find a restaurant that is in business for just a few months and can pull together a great off-site sample like this.
Cannoli from Mama Mia’s
Cannoli’s are a favorite of mine and something I’ve always struggled with trying to recreate. Mama Mia’s was there filling these bad boys for each individual patron. I thought that showed a great deal of effort since they easily could’ve pre-filled earlier and had them just sitting around to make it easier. Kudos to you Mama Mia’s for the effort and tasty treat!
Taking pictures/drinking wine/eating everything in sight is really difficult to balance. Every time I go to one of these events, I try to go in with a game plan but end up failing. Someday I’ll master it but until then, please accept the few images I have to offer.
If you have the opportunity to attend this event next year, I promise it’s worth it. Attend and enjoy yourself and you can count on seeing me there too!
1 Comment
I never even saw the fish tacos at Belinis, they must have gone quick, and I wasn’t able to get the canolis either. I thought Druthers was fantastic, its been a couple of weeks and I cant remember my other favorites.