Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure

Coming to Solvang this Saturday,February 16th, 2013 is another extension of events from the Garagiste Festival. When it comes to food, so often foodies gravitate towards a local chef that uses fresh ingredients to "cook with love." There are of course rare occasions were there could be mass hysteria over a box of nuclear fall out food like twinkles or Coke Classic, however, most lean towards well prepared foods.

Translating this over to wine is where the Garagiste wine producer comes into play. These are typically dedicated, highly passionate people that produce wines with soul, in small quantities. The festival has defined their version of small quantities by any wine producer with 1,200 cases or less.

Most of these winemakers do what they do out of a passion while holding other jobs as winemakers for larger producers or something entirely different. Due to the small size, there is ofen a barrier for some of these winemakers to have a tasting room. (Exceptions apply such as: Native9 and Tercero amongst others) These are the truly hidden gems that often cannot be found on the wine trail or at your local grocery store. In fact, several of these winemakers have landed on my top wines of the year. 

This event will allow ticket holders the opportunity to taste over 100 wines poured by 32 artisan winemakers from the Santa Ynez Valley at The Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure. The Solvang festival showcases hard-to-find exceptional wineries, many that do not receive the level of focus they so greatly deserve.

(Portion of Media Release) The Santa Ynez Valley winemakers will be pouring over 20 varietals, as well as unique blends reflecting the American Garagistes’ tradition of renegade, hand-crafted and highest quality winemaking.   The tickets to the tasting are going fast, but are currently available for just $50 at http://garagistefestival.com.

The Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure Grand Tasting takes place at the beautiful, Mission-style Veterans Memorial Hall in the heart of Solvang, California this Saturday, February 16th from 2:00pm to 5:00pm.

Wineries pouring at the festival are A-non-ah-mus, Altman Winery, Autonom, Baehner Fournier Vineyards, Blair Fox Cellars, Casa Dumetz, Center of Effort, Cholame Vineyard, Cordon Wines, Deovlet Wines, El Rey Wines, Frequency Wines, Ground Effect Wine Co., J. Wilkes Wines, Kaena Wine Co., Kessler-Haak Wines, La Fenetre Wines, Larner Winery, Luminesce, C. Nagy Wines, Native9 Wine, Pence Ranch, Piedrasassi, Press Gang Cellars, Refugio Ranch, Roark Wine Co., Ryan Cochrane Wines, Seagrape Wine Co., Shai Cellars, Storm Wines, Tercero Wines and Transcendence Wines.