Charlottesville will soon be home to a food and wine festival, officially named “The International Food and Wine Experience of Charlottesville.” Spanning 3 days, this conference (IFWEOC for short) intends to make Charlottesville the “Wine Capital of the East” with various fine food and wine experiences. The Experience involves a whole host of local wineries and restaurants, well-known chefs and foodies.
What are these experiences?
Scroll to the bottom to find out how to win free tickets to one of the events.
Half of the fun is picking which events to attend. Here are ones that caught my eye:
Taste Wine Like a Master Sommelier
I don’t think you get one of those cool chains, but you do get to hear from a panel of expert wine tasters about how they go about selecting fine wines and what you should know to impress your friends.
Wine and cheese pairings are extremely fun, especially when they are hosted by Barboursville Vinyards, which happens to be my favorite local winery.
Fried Chicken, Grits and Wine? Siips promises to reveal the secrets of fried chicken.
Also in attendance will be chef Todd Jurich for the Gala dinner on the 24th. He will work with master sommelier Barbara Werley (one of 15 females to hold this title in US) to create a four course dinner paired with wines. In addition, Karen Urie of the Town House will speak on the subject of progressive cuisine. You can look at the full list of headline names here.
We’ve got four tickets to give away to the Drink Pinot Noir and Watch Sideways event. Just leave a comment with the form below (real emails only and one entry per person) and we will enter you into a random drawing. We’ll choose four winners on Dec 31st and notify them via email. I’m really excited about this event and will be sure to photograph and write about everything I can. Cheers!
Related posts:
- Charlottesville’s Food and Wine Experience Postponed
- Wine Tasting Weekends
- Taste This: Food, Wine and Beer Tasting Event
I’d love to win one. Thanks.
How much are tickets to this glorious wine extravaganza?
These four tickets you have… Wouldn’t it be better to have only two winners with a pair of tickets each? One ticket doesn’t really help (for some of us that wouldn’t go alone).
The secrets of fried chicken? Really? How international. And drinking Pinot and watching Sideways is so 4 years ago.
like a fucking million dollars. these people are insane. the “grand tasting” lasts for TWO HOURS and costs $125. the gala dinner is $229.
they’re supposedly modeling the event after the south beach wine & food festival, but when i started going to that, it was only $125 for six hours of two football field-sized tents of wine & liquor & samples from all the downtown & sobe restaurants i could never afford to go to.
they’re touting the 100 wineries, but how much can you really drink in 2 hours? also this 2 hours ridiculousness is only going to hurt the virginia wineries. the “point” is to compare virginia and international wines, but if you have a limited amount of time, who’s going to waste it on wines you could drink every day? the wineries have to pay something like $200, & then aren’t going to make any sales. thanks, siips dudes. you suck at wine tastings and you suck at a wine festival.
You are right; we’ll give away 2 pairs of tickets instead. Thanks for the input!
wait, so there are fewer winners just because lulu isn’t self-sufficient? great.
french wine and food pairing ?
the web site mentionned three french restaurateur and their food, i can only think of vincnet from the back in da days metropolitain and maybe brice even tought i don’t know how much he is in the kitchen. Maybe Eric rippert or daniel boulud comin down fron new york
The website is so fail. There aren’t gonna be any green vines and ripening grapes in this wine country in the middle of January. I’m also pretty sure most of thos phots are not people or places in this area. And look– deviled eggs! What a food experience! It’s blowing my mind!
Frenchy are you ivre? Look at your spellinz.
they’re touting the 100 wineries, but how much can you really drink in 2 hours?
Is that a challenge? It sounds like a challenge. Wait, $125? That’s effing ridiculous. I’d rather go to South Beach. When is that?
february 22. (the 21st is sold out.) it’s $212.50 now, but that’s still more wine for your money than this crap. and real celebrity chefs–emeril, giada, tyler, paula…
and what prevents you from drinking 400 wines in 2 hours isn’t your capabilities, it’s the lines and the old people in front of you who want the pourers to actually talk to them.
What the hell is “Processo” sparkling wine?
http://ifweoc.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=162866
Maybe some Capshaw restaurants would improve the lineup. And where are Mkt. St. and Tastings?
Wine tasting on a walking circuit does seems like a good idea though.
Lets get kyle embroiled in another lawsuit…. what do you say?
“Wine tasting on a walking circuit does seems like a good idea though.”
that’s called friday. we do it every week.
hee hee
I’d love to go to this as well!
@ 15 you owe me a new keyboard. thaaaaanks…
@5 and about 2700 miles West, too.
Yay!
@20: They should call it the Pretension Festival.
The photos, I has them.
So much more fun than fighting with the bigots in the gay thread.
Voila!
Wow, this whole thing looks just…sad. The prices are comically high. $45 for a “Processo Breakfast” at 8am at Sal’s? Really? Even if we presume that its actually a glass of prosecco that one will get with their “unique plated breakfast” how in the name of anything is this a $45 event?
$60 for a South African wine tasting with South African food at Shebeen….is this different than just going to Shebeen? I suppose you wouldn’t normally get to taste several different wines, but I bet you could go with another person and $60 would get plenty of food for two and another $60 would let you order, what, 6 or 8 or maybe 10 glasses of wine to taste together.
There’s no evidence of awareness of reality in the construction of this festival.
They show movies on my teeth.
-
Thanks!
Is a ‘blind tasting’ anything to do with eye masks and dicks? If it is, I’m all over this one.
How does Siips have the secret to fried chicken? I thought Gordonsville had that shit patented.
How does Siips know the secret to Fried Chicken? I thought Gordonsville had that shit patented.
Why are my linky-poos getting eaten?
How does Siips know the secret to Fried Chicken? I thought Gordonsville had that shit patented.
Anyeatenlinky, I wanted to ask how in tarnation Siips thinks they know shat about fried chicken. Gordonsville patented that shit.
Bahahahahaha… it says,
Trains carrying soldiers during the Civil War were greeted at the depot by thongs of chicken vendors
@35 Best typo in for evah!
Hey, if anyone didn’t catch that, I mentioned something about chicken thongs. Twenty times.
I predict low attendance.
I think it could do all right. People like these brandy things. But they oughta loosen up the change and get the real wine shops and wine bars involved if they want to get the cognoscenti.
I predict the sheeple will buy more tix to this than they do to an excellent wine dinner at L’Avventura (insert current restaurant name) with a wine shop.
I’d love to for free. And… definitely not otherwise.
@39 il cane pazzo was packed for that wine dinner. and it was only $65. this is ridiculous.
Ok, throw my name into the hat. I guess I’d like to go. Thanks.
I think it would have been much more fun to give 4 individual tickets, and have 4 Cvillains spend a random alcohol fuelled evening together. For example I find mnemenomorph interesting because of the screen name, and C.Harris is intriguing because of the complete and utter lack of… well… anything really. Josh could be Josh from Beer Run so fuck yeah I am all over that like a rash of hives and Jason and Doc just sound well brought up and jolly nice folks. It could have been the ultimate blind-non-date.
So you have a crush on Josh?
That’s fucked up dude.
I’d like to go too. And I want to win tickets because I don’t want to pay for it….it does seem just a bit overpriced (she says with all the understatement she can muster….)
The organizers of this event are an absolute joke!
they have absolutley no pulse on the charlottesville food scene nor who is really driving it!
Todd Jurich from Norfolk? Karen Urie from Chilhowie???? are you kidding me?
it at least looks like they rounded up the local wine greats but where are the great local chefs?
Thank you!
@12 watch me…
Underdog newbie ftw! I’m gonna catch ‘em all, pokemon!
How are the events at the Sage Moon Gallery going to be held after they close on the 15th? From the old media:
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/03/mall-east-end-loses-another-business/
December’s First Friday will be Sage Moon Gallery’s last First. The five-year-old art gallery plans to turn in its keys December 15, and its space joins the neighboring empty storefronts on the 400-block of the Downtown Mall’s east end.
“We’re sorry, we’re very sorry,” says co-owner Morgan MacKenzie-Perkins. “We’re having to walk away from a big dream.”
I guess “An American in Paris-One Chardonnay Which Changed the World” and “The Artist in Wines” will have to find another venue…….
I guess it won’t migrate to Migration:
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/10/migration-migrates-not-a-viable-business-model-say-owners/
Migration: A Gallery is the latest downtown art store to bite the dust, joining Sage Moon, whose last day selling art is today. After not quite three years in Charlottesville, Migration shuts its doors January 26, but owners Laura and Rob Jones promise to continue dealing art through their website. Well they could make it their last hurrah!
@47 I ask with complete sincerity: who are the great local chefs right now?
@53.. I agree with this. It’s hard to find really amazing local chefs, but I still think you could include Tomas from Mas or Patrick O’Connell from Inn at Little Washington.
Puh-lease! This town has lots of great chefs. Brian Helleburg from Fleurie, Dean Maupin from the Clifton ring a bell?
@52 That part of the mall is becoming a ghost town now that the election is over and the Obama office is closed. That’s probably not going to get better down there for a while.
Who’s next, the cat house?
@57 .. what new additions? that menu hasn’t really changed since the place opened.
There are a ton of great chefs in this town.
I agree! Regina Pappanaguen at the 5th street Burger King kicks all kinds of ass!
I don’t know who the chef is at Al Dente but the brunch and dinner I had there were really tasty and beautifully presented.
Will Richie from Rev Soup is a gud chef too.
@60 they have brunch??
@58 scoriole told us about a new addition a few weeks ago. forget what it was.
where’s a gud place for a rehearsal dinner?
@62: http://cvillain.com/2008/02/21/restaurant-rumors-al-dente-on-the-move/#comments
see comment 45
I want to go!!
should be a lovely time of year when Charlottesville is at its peak of grayness.
@66 that was their point. we have tourists when it’s nice, so let’s bring in tourists when it’s not nice. and the mall is being rebricked. except seriously, how many people are paying $600 for the wine crap + omni package?
kyle, agree with 43. this can replace vanillavy’s whole blind date thing. we can get drunk with 3 strangers at 1030am and then write about it on the interwebs.
(i say “we” because it’s my half birthday and you all know how much my real birthday sucked, prettyplease…)
Charlottesville needs more chefs like this.
this video contains content that’s inappropriate for some users? uhoh…
You know what Charlottesville does NOT need more chefs like… that girl Carla from Top Chef.
She kind of scares me.
Shenanigans!
Ooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh
this video contains content that’s inappropriate for some users?
Specifically, japanese buttocks. But its oh so worth it.
I’d love to win tickets – it’s the only way I’ll *ever* get to go (too frikkin expensive for us right now, still selling our house in PGH) Does that win me the sympathy vote? That, and I might get SUED? lolololol!
@71 I see… i see you dead, from being bludgeoned to death by a wine bottle wielded by a shenanigans.
I’d be next, bc i did lol a little bit.
Free wine for me please.
So, this could have been a great event (especially to showcase VA wine), but the organizers have forgot one major artifact: the end customer. Everyone who enjoys wine, would love to attend this festival, but the cost for events is so prohibitive that it is bound to fail. The costs are so crazy, especially a few weeks after the holidays and in the current fiscal atmosphere. If you are uber weathy, then this event is for you, but you will probably be disappointed. For the normal chap, the prices are at least double what they should/could be.
With combined costs rivaling than the Miami event, Spectator’s tasting in New York, and Food and Wine’s in Colorado, with few “great” wineries, what were the organizors thinking? The website touts “over 100 world class wineries.” No offense to the supremely good wineries that are booked to attend, there are only a handful of true “world” class amazing producers attending to justify the price.
Seriously, “Individual tickets prices range from $35.00 to $229.00, depending on the seminar or event chosen. The Grand Tickets continue on sale and include the choice of 3 seminars, a champagne breakfast, the Grand Tasting, the Blind Tasting, the Gala Dinner, and the Sunday Brunch. While supply lasts, the cost of the Grand Ticket will be $559.00.”
So the cheapest ticket is 35.00, really?
Now let’s talk about the “cheeze” factor… barbque & wine, fried chicken and wine? I don’t care how much you dress it up, I just want a beer or softdrink with some foods. Wine may work with them, but does the consumer really care? Now let’s be sophisticated and not cliche, so let’s go see Sideways and drink wine in a theartre. Nice thought, misguided direction.
Are the organizers insane? Over a grand for a couple to attend for the weekend? $229 a head for the main dinner? …to put $229 in perspective, that’s case of very decent wine. And don’t even get me starting on the 2-hour main tasting schedule.
Now i appreciate and commend what the organizers are attempting to do, showing the great potential of this relatively new wine region and the amazing, dedicated work of the local winemakers. I just fear that this event will fail horribly, costing the wineries time, money and exposure. I feel that unless the event is changed up, the industry (outside of charlottesville) will never attend the festival again.
IFWEOC, I wish you luck and hope you succeed, but (like the rest of my circle) unless I win a tcket, I will not be attending.
Maybe they’re catering to a certain level of income or certain clientele set. Either way, I agree that they might be doing a disservice to themselves by not making the event more accessible to regular old schmoes like me (and by regular, I mean fantastically irregular but with the everyday man’s strugglings of capitalism).
Maybe they’re depending on the business of people who get tickets as presents, or win them in contests?
/Ooh, ooh pick me!
//For that much money I could buy a looooot of wine elsewhere….
IFWEOC
Hey, that one’s kinda fun to say.
I’m willing to go for free
Throw my name in please! Danke.
Tossing my name in the ring since I would love to go to see the bizarreness of it all. I can only imagine the crowd that will attend this. There are a lot of comments I could make about this shindig – but the main thing I notice is the local wines and winemakers missing from the schedule. The few locals they do have from this area are the few that nobody actually wants to see or spend time with.
Successful wine marketing is not centered around the concept of exclusivity – especially in Virginia. Too many “marketing types” can’t figure this one out.
Put my name in please. My NYE party in DC got canceled last minute “due to the poor economy” and it wasn’t as pricey as this wine thingy either… maybe CVille is doing better than DC.
Who won?
I’ve notified the winners via email and I’ll announce them as soon as I hear them confirm they want the tickets. Sorry for the delay, I have been out of the country.
@86: You must have spelled my email address wrong, because it never got delivered. Please try to re-send.
I got my email saying I am champion of the internetz and am therefore awarded 2 free tickets.