Surviving the Cincinnati Int'l Wine Festival, 2009 Edition(1)
The days are numbered. The Cincinnati Int'l Wine Festival is this weekend. Hundreds of wine, hundreds of people, and you with your tasting glass. How on earth do you survive it?
I have my own tips for Wine Festival Survival. I polled a large group of wine bloggers on Twitter and discovered that my tips are everyone else’s as well. These tips are geared for people who are heading to the Festival to try new wines, learn new things, and not get generally hammered.
So, from the collected wisdom of the Wine Blogging Twittersphere and in no particular order, here some ways to survive tasting hundreds of wines:
1. Make a game plan. Let me make this easier for you. You can download the Tasting Guide. In this you can find the list of attending wineries, the corresponding floor plan, and the list of wines in the Special Tasting Room.
Plan ahead. See what looks interesting. Accept that you can’t possibly try everything. You may want to decide to divide and conquer within your group of friends.
2. Eat a big meal before hand. You’ll stay sober longer. You may want to follow your festival experience with a large meal afterwards. Either way, it’s a busy weekend downtown, and the St. Patrick's Day parade and festivities fall on Saturday. Whatever you decide, make reservations.
3. Consider a designated driver, cab service, or hotel room. Kevin & I just succumbed to an afternoon and evening of alcohol and are getting a hotel room. The Wine Festival is smartly offering hotel packages and it’s an opportunity for a romantic evening. Thinking of a cab service? You can always use FETCH (513-35-FETCH).
4. Dress comfortably. There is no need for high heels. Pull out your Easy Spirits, ladies. You can look cute and trendy and leave the stilettos at home. You will be walking a lot, standing even more, and jostling in and out of a lot of people. Also, expect it to be warm in the tasting hall. Lots of people can do that to a room.
5. Since we’re talking about clothes, wear dark colors. I know it's just about Spring, but don’t pull out your sundresses and pastels. Even if you manage to avoid spilling red wine on yourself, someone else might very well careen into you. Lots of people + lots of alcohol = Tide Stain Sticks and dark colors.
