Attending the 2008 Boulder Food and Wine Festival

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Written by DJ Spiess

Tuesday, 01 July 2008

Here's my thoughts after attending the 2008 Boulder Food and Wine Festival.

I went to the Boulder Food and Wine festival last weekend. This was the second annual festival, and the second time I’ve attended. It was interesting to see what changes were made from last year.

The festival is held in the park near the Pearl Street Mall. Of all the places to choose to hold a festival, I don’t think you can do much better. The weather was perfect, and the temperature was nice and cool.

2nd Annual Boulder Food and Wine Festival. Should there be a third?

Changes

The first thing changed from last year was the date. Last year the festival was held in August. The festival organizers not only moved the festival to June, they changed the time to later in the evening. The later time worked much better. The festival last year was so hot during the day; wineries were forced to keep their red wine in ice to keep it drinkable.

Wineries were fewer

Last year there were several “gems” in the group of wineries. Other than a few big wineries and meaderies who produce consistent wines and meads, this year was disappointing. I tried wine from almost every vendor and nothing made me say “wow”. Most wines made me say “meh”, and one wine made me say “oh wow that is too alcoholic”. There were fewer wineries this year from last year. I bought a few wines last year, but I left empty handed this year.

Food was scarce

The food was also disappointing. There were fewer food vendors as well, and every vendor who served more than a tomato on a cracker had a long line. The biggest reason for the long lines were the limited number of food vendors and poor portion sizes. One of the longest lines was for a slice of pizza, most likely because it was large enough where your stomach might actually notice you ate something. To purchase more tickets, you needed to shell out another $5 USD per ticket. There was nothing I ate which I felt was worth $5.

If you like looking at butts, that's what you saw in every line for food.

Ironically the best food booth was from Whole Foods. They had a buffet line of olives, fruits, cheeses, and meats. You could eat as much as you wanted, and it didn’t cost any tickets. I won’t say who the worst was (because I don’t want to give them any press), but they had a single shrimp wrapped in slice of bacon for one ticket.

This was the best food deal at the festival.

Other booths

As for the other non food or wine booths, there were a few. One booth had an interesting device for removing corks from wine bottles. You inserted a needle through the wine cork which injected CO2 into the wine bottle. The sudden pressure would pop the cork out. It was interesting, but I’m not sure I want to keep buying CO2 cartridges just to open wine bottles.

Kinda cool, kinda gimmicky

Overall Impressions

Overall I did not think the festival was worth the $50 USD admission fee. When you compare it to other events, like the Great American Beer festival which is also $50 USD, the Boulder Food and Wine festival comes up far short. The food wasn’t special, and there were not enough wineries to make it worth it. The time of day was much better, but it seems everything else got worse. If the event does not offer more next year, I probably will pass.

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Stacy

| 65.51.21.xxx | 2008-07-02 11:29:03

Kind of stinks that it wasn't as good as anticipated. A great site that might interest you is AnswersTV.com. They have a bunch of channels including a food channel and a wine channel. Check it out...might be something to post about or take videos from.

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