High Museum wine auction, Sandestin festival coming up

If you are a wine industry VIP or a serious collector, no doubt you have March 26-28 blocked out in your calendar for the annual pilgrimage to the High Museum wine auction. A blip on the radar 17 years ago, the largest fund-raising event for the Atlanta art museum has morphed into one of the top wine auctions in the country. Last year, the auction raised $2.1 million.

If you’re not up for the $400 seat at the auction or $2,500 for the gala dinner March 27 or just want to get out of town, head south for a wine event with a little more sea breeze and a lot more suntan lotion.

Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort

More than 600 wines will be poured at a Sandestin, Fla., festival.The Sandestin (Fla.) Wine Festival, April 23-26, started 23 years ago as an even smaller blip on winemakers’ calendars.

“It has not only grown in size, but the increase in quality has been exponential,” said Todd Vucovich, executive director of the Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation. “For example, this year we’re welcoming Dan Kosta of Kosta-Brown, Bill Phelps of Joseph Phelps, Tom Johnson of Silver Oak Cellars and the list goes on.”

Indeed, a lot has changed over the years for the Sandestin festival. Attendees once bumped and elbowed their way along the skinny sidewalks in front of Shops at Sandestin. The event is now held in the spacious plaza of the Baytowne Wharf resort, which is better equipped to handle the 2,500 guests and has allowed event planners to offer things like a cheese-tasting pavilion. And you need a little room when you’re pouring 600 wines from more than 80 producers.

While the number of attendees has grown and the location changed, a couple of my favorite things about Sandestin have stayed the same. First, if you get a ticket to the wine tasting, you get a 15 percent discount at the temporary wine shop just outside the festival grounds.

Now a word of praise and warning about the temporary wine shop. The praise: All 600 wines from the festival are offered in the shop, which is housed under a small circus tent. The warning: All 600 wines are offered in the shop. I’ve yet to schlep fewer than two cases back home.

The other thing about Sandestin I like is that it is one of the most family-friendly wine events I’ve ever been to. When the event was held along Shops at Sandestin, my wife, Eleanore, and I could sip glasses of beefy zinfandel while watching the dozens of kids create sand sculptures in the two playgrounds in the middle of everything. And at Baytowne, Eleanore and our girls have been known to catch a musical act on one of the two stages.

The wine festival costs $60 for one day ($90 if you go April 25-26). Much like the High Museum auction, high rollers can enjoy private dinners with celebrity chefs and winemakers and bid on amazing wines, dinners and trips during the live and silent auctions.

Again, like the High Museum auction, the cause is good. In the four years that the Destin auction has been part of the Sandestin festival, it has raised $2 million for eight children’s charities along Florida’s Emerald Coast. Last year alone, it raised $800,000.

For more information on the High Museum auction and to buy tickets, go to www.atlanta-wineauction.org. For more information on the Sandestin Wine Festival and Auction and to buy tickets, go to www.dcwaf.org or www.sandestinwinefestival.com.