Garagiste Festival comes home to Paso Robles Nov. 11 – 13
Sixth anniversary event celebrates over 60 hard-to-find micro-wineries pouring 200 wines
Sixth anniversary event celebrates over 60 hard-to-find micro-wineries pouring 200 wines– The Garagiste Wine Festival returns to its birthplace, Paso Robles, from Nov. 11 – 13 for its sixth anniversary with three days of events that feature over 60 micro-production winemakers pouring over 200 wines. Tickets are on sale now.
Garagistes is a term originally used in the Bordeaux region of France to denigrate renegade small-lot wine makers, sometimes working in their “garages” (anything considered not a chateau), who refused to follow the “rules,” and is now a full-fledged movement responsible for making some of the best wine in the world. Launched in 2011 in Paso Robles, which was recently named America’s Best Wine Country Town by Sunset Magazine, the Garagiste Festival was the first event to define, and shine a spotlight on, the “garagiste*” wine movement, which features commercial artisan winemakers who handcraft under 1,500 cases a year and pay close, hands-on attention to every wine they make.
This year, the festival’s spotlight is firmly on Paso Robles as it celebrates the region’s wide range of varieties and unique blends, as well its renegade spirit. New events this year include a tasting seminar focusing on “Illegal Blends” – innovative blends by Paso winemakers – and a Paso Garagiste Wine Passport day, offering special post-festival access to winemakers and their tasting rooms, vineyards, or wineries, as well as special Paso Robles weekend packages, including hotel discounts.
“All the recent Paso Robles accolades are true and deserved: we have always known that Paso is one of America’s ‘Best Wine Country Towns’ and ‘Happiest Cities.’ And, although we now have Garagiste Festivals in several locations, there is no substitute for meeting the winemakers in their native habitat where the festival originated,” said Garagiste Festival Co-Founder Doug Minnick. “The fun, friendly, no-snobs allowed camaraderie of Paso and the Garagiste movement is everywhere. If you’ve never been to a Paso Garagiste Wine Festival – and especially if you’ve never visited Paso – this is a fantastic opportunity to experience the spirit of these cutting edge winemakers and discover this amazingly beautiful, comfortable and welcoming wine town. Or you can sit in traffic in Napa. Your call.”
“Our festival is the go-to event to not only taste the flagship wines of our region, but also to dig into the remarkable Paso Robles’ terroir and the experimental craft of our garagiste winemakers. Emblematic of this is our first-ever ‘Illegal Blends’ seminar, an introduction to, and celebration of, the no-rules approach of our region’s winemakers,” said Garagiste Festival Co-founder Stewart McLennan. “Unbounded by the mandated-by-law regional blends France, Italy and the Old World have to contend with – and with a cornucopia of locally grown varieties – the seminar will demonstrate how our region’s winemakers are able to experiment with blends to make a wine better than its usual parts.”
The festival also includes the Grand Tasting Main Event, Winemaker Shootout, Rare and Reserve Wine Tasting with Gourmet Grilled Cheese, and Keep It Rockin’ After Party. The festival takes place at the Paso Robles Fairgrounds and other Paso area locations, including Lefondusac in Paso’s hot new winery district Tin City and the historic Carlton Hotel in Atascadero.
The sixth anniversary Paso Robles Garagiste Wine Festival marks the non-profit Garagiste Events fourteenth festival – festivals also take place in Solvang, Los Angeles and Oakland. The festivals have introduced hundreds of outstanding artisan winemakers to thousands of passionate wine consumers, members of the trade and media, raising the profiles of many of the winemakers nationally for the first time, and raising thousands of dollars for the education of future winemakers. Garagiste Festivals Inc. is a 5013c non profit organization and benefits the Garagiste Scholarship at Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Department.
For full schedule details, go to http://californiagaragistes.com/2016-paso-fest/
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