The 34th Fredericksburg Food & Wine Festival is in the books, and all initial feedback is very positive.
The event started with a Street Dinner on Austin Street featuring five chefs, four wineries, and two distilleries serving up a new culinary experience for Fredericksburg. There were 176 guests sitting at a row of tables over 200 feet long.
The magic that evening is the result of great collaboration among:
• Elements Hospitality and Revel Kitchen & Catering worked together to provide an excellent service experience — the two teams blended into a seamless and brilliant service staff. Thank you, Marisa Pettit of Revel and Travis Tucker of Elements.
• Chef Mike Hall of Hill & Vine provided the creative Hill Country style appetizers for the reception, Chef Adrian Cruz of Alla Campagna started the dinner off with a fall salad featuring root veggies; Chef Jeff Stewart of Hill Country Herb Garden served up redfish in papillote featuring Dijon sauerkraut; Chef Max Pettit of Revel/El Quincho served his Hill Country Duo of confit vacio beef and grilled lamb chop; and Fredericksburg’s own Chef Keidel Hughes of the Albert Hotel created a wonderful dessert of bourbon chocolate pecan tart using Garrison Brother’s Bourbon.
• Dietz Distillery and Heath Sparkling wines offered cocktails and bubbly for the reception. Augusta Vin Autumn Rose was paired with the salad. Michael Ros Viognier was a wonderful pairing with the redfish, and William Chris poured their Mourvèdre and Enchante wines to pair with the Hill Country Duo. Fittingly, Garrison Brother’s Small Batch Bourbon was paired with the dessert.
The convergence of chefs, wineries, distilleries, servers and their collective passions created a magical evening.
On Saturday, the enchantment continued.
We had a family-friendly event Saturday morning that featured a baby water buffalo petting area hosted by Oro Bianco. Along with Oro Bianco’s gelato, participants enjoyed breakfast tacos from Peeler Farms and a variety of espresso drinks at the Sure Shot food trailer.
Fischer & Weiser hosted a Waterfront Brunch at Das Peach Haus. Five food stations offered quite a variety of culinary delights from freshly shucked PEI oysters to fresh muffins to some of the best breakfast sliders anywhere.
The Texas Wine Auction (www. texaswineauction.com) recruited 35 wineries for the Grand Tasting, and of course, a wine auction.
Over $40,000 was raised in support of mental wellness programs for the workers in our tourism sector.
Thank you to the Texas Wine Auction team: Dave Bryant, Chris Brundrett, Dawn Cox, Valerie Elkins, and Amber Saidler.
Augusta Vin hosted the VIP tent, and Elements Hospitality supported Augusta Vin by providing some culinary nibbles to go with their excellent wine.
To provide food for all guests at the festival, we were blessed with 24 restaurants sharing their culinary expertise with nearly 2,000 attendees, volunteers and all partners’ employees who worked the festival cooking, serving, pouring and more.
Saturday’s menu was as delicious as it was diverse.
To name a few: Halter Ranch was slow-roasting a suckling pig at their station; Mesquite was sharing brisket bites while Nury’s served an exquisite ceviche; Eaker BBQ had their Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ brisket and Hye Thai ladled Tom Yum soup; Leroy’s TexMex showed off their Quesoff trophy from the summer’s Food and Wine Preview event while they served tacos.
There is not enough room in this column to acknowledge everyone. I do know that the festival guests enjoyed all the culinary delights and beverages at the festival.
The collaboration of our culinary community (breweries, distilleries, restaurants, and restaurants) for the Food & Wine Festival created a lot of magic.
Mikula is the president and CEO of the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at jim@fbgtxchamber. org
