Pour, Plan & Play: Essential Tips for Wine Festival Goers Season 5| Ep 16

Join sommelier Erin for this episode as she uncorks her top 5 tips for a fabulous festival experience. Learn how to map out your visit with a strategic pre-festival plan, engage with enriching tasting sessions and speaker insights, sustain your tasting stamina, and get tips on what to wear. Whether you’re a casual sipper or a seasoned attendee, Erin’s expert advice will equip you to navigate the vibrant world of wine festivals confidently. Tune in to refine your festival strategy and enjoy wine tasting with your very own practical sommelier!

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Transcript

Erin: 0:00

Wine and wine and food festivals offer incredible ways to learn about different wines in a fabulous setting. However, without the right preparation, you might find yourself overwhelmed and missing out on some of the best experiences available for you at the event. So in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing five essential tips that if you have a wine or wine and food festival on your calendar for the season, these are going to help you navigate the festivals with ease and make the most out of your visits. Whether you're a first time festival goer or a seasoned attendee. This episode is filled with great tips for you that are going to help you get the most out of the festivals you attend. Let's get started and dive right into today's episode. Hi everyone. And welcome to the wine talk, talk. I'm your host. My Erin Rosar and I am so happy that you're here with me today. If we haven't met before, it's lovely to have you here. If we have welcome back now, for those of you who are new, you should know that I've been a professional smile for over 20 years now. And it is my passion and my privilege to make learning about why not only fun and easy, but also practical meaning. I want to make sure you leave every single episode with some real life practical tips that you can use right away to help you find wines that you are. Going to love and enjoy and be able to share with family and friends. I want you to think of me as your very own practical supply and on that note, this episode is filled with great practical tips, if you're heading out to some wine or wine and food festivals, this season. Now in this episode, I have five essential tips for you. And tip number one, and this is my top tip. If you will, if you do none of the others, this one will save you so much time. It makes you get the most out of the festival, but before you even stepped foot into the festival, it's crucial to prepare. Most festivals will provide a floor plan and list of wines being showcased, and probably send you out an email with links that you can go to their site and check everything out. And it is so important that you take a look over this. Information before you go. If you can download it to your phone, that's fantastic. A lot of festivals these days actually even have an app that you can download, so you can make your plan in their app. If they have one, I highly recommend using it. But have a look in advance and you're going to plan your route. If you have ever been to Disneyworld or anywhere like that, where, you know, you have one day, you have to pick things that are the most important to you, and you are going to do the same for visiting a wine festival. You're going to identify boosts that you absolutely don't want to miss. And you're going to mark them off. You're going to plan your route if you will, of how are you going to get around the floor? Always a good tip to look for where the bathrooms are before you go and the food stations as well. By looking ahead, you're going to get a lay of the land and you're going to feel more comfortable as soon as you get there, instead of needing to take a bit of time to get your bearings. You're going to start off right away on the right foot. And this way you won't find yourself wandering aimlessly or missing out on lands that you were really excited about. And sometimes depending on the wines, there may be limited amount of samplings available for those wines styles. So if you mark off the ones you really want to try, you're also going to make sure that you don't miss out. If the wine at the festival runs out, there's only so much potentially that they may have. A little bit of planning goes a long way and can set up your entire experience of the festival. Tip number two is check for scheduling of any tasting sessions or speakers. Many festivals will have a speaker stage or a tasting area where you're going to have an opportunity to sit in masterclasses or tasting sessions, talks by experts. These can be incredibly enriching experiences where you can learn directly from Somalis Vinters and industry professionals that maybe you wouldn't have an opportunity to meet. This can be really a great. A great way, especially for looking to learn about a certain wine, but you get to potentially listen to a winemaker, talk about their wines if they're on the stage. Just like tip number one, this goes along the same lines, but check the festival stage and see if there are any tasting events that you may need to pre-register for some may have a small fee depending what the wines are, but if there's something on the schedule that you would really like to see if you can, pre-book your seats, I would highly recommend it. This also will allow you to plan your time at the festival. If you know, you have a block of time, you need to be at the festival speaker stage. You can make sure you route your tasting over to that stage appropriately. And as a side note, many of these sessions will fill up quickly. So as soon as you get your information about the festival, I would highly recommend you check this out quickly so that you can register and you won't miss out on the experience. Tip number three, this may sound simple, but it is essential and that's, don't go on an empty stomach and don't plan that you're going to eat there a hundred percent. There may of course be foods there and snacks there, but you're going to be busy and time is going to go fast. And sometimes there's a lot of people and the lines are long. And you're just going to say, now I don't want to wait in line. Let's keep going. So eat something before you go. Make sure you don't go with an empty stomach. But have something before you go that way you're not hungry and trying to taste mine. And if the lions are big for some of the food stations, you're not going to be worried about it. So definitely highly recommend that you eat before you go. It's going to help just have something in your stomach, especially with the alcohol and give you some energy to keep going through the event. Tip number four. Now this one is one that so many people forget, and this is critical for remembering the favorite wines that you discovered the festival. This is about making notes. And so whether you jot down notes and a festival guide, use your voice notes on your phone, or even take pictures of the bottles, make sure you have some system in place so that you can record the wines that you find that you really, really love. And maybe want to try again. Again, or pick up at your favorite store after the festival. Not only does this help you remember the wind speed is also great for following up afterwards, you're always going to think you're going to remember, and I can honestly tell you you're not going to, and I can not tell you the number of people will come and see me in a wine store and be like area. And I went to this wine festival and there was this red wine from California, and I'm hoping you can help me find it again because I can't remember it and that usually we can help, but we play a game a little bit of. Tell me what you remember. And if you take a picture with your phone of just Aaron, can you help me find this wine that's way faster than trying to figure out what mine from, where that you tried. So find a system that works for you. I mean again, a voice note. Some people like to write down in the festival guide, usually there's little pencils, but make sure you have a pen that you take with you in your purse or in your bag. But it's a find a way to record the wines. You try it. You're going to get you trying some incredible wines and you're definitely going to find some new favorites that you don't want to forget. Now tip number five. This is the one that no one wants to talk about, it might not sound glamorous, but you're going to need to be spitting some wine out. So you've made your plan. You've picked the wines you want to try and you probably have more than two or three on that list. So let's just put it out there in that if you consume all of these wines. Not only are you potentially not going to feel good the next day? You're also going to lose your perception to try and assess other wines that you're trying as the festival goes on. Everything's just going to taste great. But the 10th sample that you've tried, so there will be spit buckets available for you within the festival. And don't worry about looking conspicuous or silly. Everybody's going to be spitting wine. you don't have to spit all the wines, but you definitely want to spit some other ways. You're just, like you said, they're going to catch up to you so quickly and your judgment's going to be off. And of course, you're going to want to drink water as the festival goes on as well. So spitting and hydrating become really important. Just know that if you're not spitting out, you're going to have a great time, but the next day might be so good. And you're going to lose that. That ability to be able to record some of the wines that you try as this festival goes on. So highly recommend spitting wines out and keep a bottle of water with you. So you can just rinse your palate as well in between wines, but keep yourself hydrated through the evening as well. So spitting, no one wants to talk about it. And ladies, in regards to spitting, just make sure if you're reading longer necklaces to use your hand on your chest to lean over, make sure your necklace doesn't get stuck in the stream. So. A little sort of tip there that goes along with this as well. And I have another tip that I really need to share with you. So let's call this bonus tip number one. And that's about what are you going to wear? And your shoes wear comfy shoes. Many times this could be an outdoor festival. So maybe you're at a field it's going to be uneven wine festivals and food festivals are not the time to wear your prettiest fanciest high-heeled shoes. You're going to want comfortable shoes so that you can walk around and maneuver if they are inside. They're usually on cement event hall floors. with carpeting over top. That gets really hard on your feet after a while. So just something to think about is comfortable. Footwear is key because of your feet hurt. You definitely just can't think straight. And of course don't wear your favorite and most beautiful white blouse or white pants. There will be red wine around accidents can happen. So. Darker colors are usually best. And I always keep a tide pen in my purse, just in case a little bit of something splashes up that I have yet to find a great variety that a tide pen can not take out. So a tide pen is super handy to have. And final bonus tip number two. Don't forget to have fun. And don't rush. If you've gone into the wine festival with your plan, you know, the wines for sure that you want to see you've mapped out the floor plan. You've booked in any speaker sessions and tasting sessions that you want to attend. And you've had a bit to eat, just have a good time and really take in all of the experiences one, or take a look at the labels. If you can listen to any winemakers at the booths, talk about their wines, listen to what other people are saying. The. The wine. It's really fun to be in a room filled with other passionate wine lovers who are all trying different things at the same time. It's amazing the different tasting note descriptors you're going to hear from other people as they talk about the wine. So have fun. Don't rush give yourself time, but that pre-planning work really is the key to success in my opinion. And it's going to help you get the most out of your experience. I hope these tips are going to help you make the most out of your next wine, wine and food festival visit. if you have any questions or comments, reach out to me@hellowinegirlacademy.com or come say hello on Instagram or Tik TOK. You'll find me at wine girl academy. Now if you're new and you haven't had a chance yet to take your wine pallet personality, you're going to find the link below you'll take my fun, quick, short signature quiz. And at the end of it, you're going to find out which pellet personality is yours and get a free guide filled with wine styles that you're going to like. And a bit more information about your palette and. Key descriptor, whereas that you can look for on the back of wine bottles so that you can easily find wines that you're going to love and enjoy. As always be sure to like share and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. New episodes come out every Tuesday. And I would love to have you join us if you're new here. On that note, I want to wish you all a wonderful week. Cheers to you. Bye now.