Food Friday: Great Grapes Wine and Food Festival in Baltimore, Maryland
The week before I flew out to Baltimore to visit my college friend, Ellen, I received an email from her with the subject “Wine and Food Festival Ticket.” The body of the email just said “We’re doing this!!! Would you be down for a VIP ticket?” All I really got from the email was that the festival was called the Great Grapes Wine and Food Festival, but the words food and wine were enough for me, so I replied “Yes, VIP for sure.”
Nothing cures a hangover like a tall glass of wine
Ellen is one of my very best friends who I hardly ever get to see. When we get together, we tend to get a little ridiculous with the alcohol and trashy TV consumption. The night before the festival, she and I broke own own rules by mixing alcohols, not eating enough, and not drinking enough water. We woke up feeling like death, but we were determined to have a great time at this festival. So we bought ourselves Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwiches for breakfast, and prepared ourselves for the day of drinking.
VIP suckas!
Springing for the VIP tickets was an excellent idea. We were presented with special arm bands that gave us access to prime seating areas, but that wasn’t really the main draw. We also got free t-shirts that say “eat. drink. relax” (new life motto?), unlimited free cheese plates, and a wine glass lanyard. What’s a wine glass lanyard, you ask? Check this shit out:
Admit it, you are so jealous.
Cheese in one hand, another hand free to shovel said cheese into my mouth, and a glass of wine around my neck – comfort, convenience and, of course, pure class.
The tastings
The festival was pretty huge. An entire park was covered with stages for musical performances and booths selling crafts, food, and wine. You can taste as many wines as you’d like for free, provided you are willing to wait in line. Every booth is swarming with people, so you can expect a minimum five-minute wait per booth, much longer for the more popular wineries. That might not sound like much, but when you are only getting a little swig of wine at the end of each line, that can get tiresome pretty quickly. It’s entirely possible for you to get a nice wine buzz or even wine drunk off the tasting, but you’d really have to hustle and work for it. I’m impatient and far from a lightweight. Ellen and I wanted lots of wine with minimum work, so after tasting about 6 different wines, we bought two bottles and just sat down. We met up with a few of her local friends, so within our group we were able to do our own mini tasting with just the wines we had all purchased.
All that food and I ate some Doritos
There were a ton of food booths all over the park grounds. They were selling typical festival food like funnel cake, burgers, hot
I never wear t-shirts, but I really liked this one, so I cut the collar out of it to make it more acceptable in my mind.
dogs, and ice cream along with some local specialties like crab legs and crab cake sandwiches. It all sounded delicious, but we decided to cheap out and bring our own food. Any ticket holder is allowed to bring in their own food, so you can easily pack more than enough food for a meal or just snacks. I had already decided to be unhealthy with my food choices, I figured I could at least be economical about it.
My recommendations
If the weather is supposed to be on the cooler side, you are interested in the musical acts, and you are willing to work for your wine – you will definitely get your money’s worth. If you can manage to stay at this festival for at least half a day and make sure you catch at least part of the musical performances while you zip about from booth to booth tasting wines, your ticket will more than pay for itself.
However, if you are lazy and want to do more drinking than tasting, this festival is not for you. I had a great time, but even the locals that were with us who had been to many Great Grapes Festivals in the past decided that this would likely be their last year. They declared that next year they would just buy some wine and food and have a tasting party on their deck. If I happen to be in town for that, I’ll be there, with my trusty wine lanyard hanging around my neck.
