In February of 2018, Portland Seafood and Wine Festival celebrated its 16th year. We’ve been to many festivals and events at Oregon convention center, but we must say this one drew the biggest crowd. We were here for the first time and didn't know what to expect.
Let’s go over of some the pros and cons of wine taste at the festival.
Pros:
- This year there were over 60 wineries, breweries, and distilleries
- With the entrance fee of $14 and $1 per glass of tasting liquid, it’s a pretty sweet deal. In most cases, it’s cheaper than in the tasting rooms
- You can sample more wines in a day than in 2 weeks driving non-stop from winery to winery
- You can taste only the wine you prefer instead of entire flight
- It pays to spend $1 to find out that $40 bottle of wine sucks and cross it from your list
- You can get a glass of your favorite wine, some seafood and enjoy it in the company of like-minded people while listening to live music
Cons:
- The quantity of the wineries doesn’t equate to quality of the wines. There were plenty of mediocre wines and a few pretty bad ones. Tip: first taste their best wine or your favorite varietal instead of the flight. If you like it, try the rest. Otherwise, give them $1 and find a better one. If their best wine wasn’t good enough for you, why give them more money?
- The smell of food makes it almost impossible to appreciate the wine aromas. You’re going to have to rely on your taste buds. Your best bet is to taste wines at the booths located further away from the food court
- After 3 pm it got crowded, it was challenging to move around, and lines to vendors grew longer. Tip: come earlier in the day to enjoy the festival before it gets crowded
Overall, we had mixed feelings about the event because we love both wine and seafood and we wanted to enjoy this festival. We came to taste wine, and it was challenging with the intense aromas of seafood. When we got hungry, the lines for food were so long that we gave up, tasted a few more wines and left.
So if you would like to hang out with friends all day, drink wine with food and listen to live music this festival is for you. If you've come to taste wine, be early and be prepared to ignore the strong aromas in the air while trying to evaluate wine bouquet.
