Garagiste Festival Lucky 13! Thirteen Memories for Our Thirteenth Anniversary
As we head into our 13th anniversary of the Garagiste Festival in Paso Robles (November 8-9), we looked back to see if we could pinpoint our 'Top 13 Garagiste Festival Memories.' It was hard to narrow it down to just 13 and, over and over again, it just came down to the people, the winemakers, the attendees, the volunteers, and the community – as well as our brand of ‘no-snobs-allowed’ humor. Thank you to everyone who has been part of the alchemy that has made the Garagiste Festival the best Wine Festival in the US. And here they are:
Garagiste Festival’s Top 13 Memories:
1. Stargazing Seminars: Over the years, we've put on some truly memorable wine seminars that have shone a spotlight on innovative and exceptional winemakers from the Central Coast. We started out strong, with Saxum’s Justin Smith, headlining our first seminar ('Paso Rocks the World') and who, a few months later, was named Wine Spectator's 2010 Top Winemaker…and we just kept going! Just a few of the winemaking stars and pioneers who have graced our podium, bringing deep wine expertise and the down to earth cred that defines the festival, are: Tablas Creek’s Jason Haas, J Lohr’s Steve Lohr, Gary Eberle (coming this November), Neil Collins (of Lone Madrone and Tablas Creek), Andrew Murray, Bob Tillman, Damian Grindley, Amy Butler, Ken Brown, Bob Lindquist, Michael Larner, and so many more. We also loved welcoming wine writing stars Matt Kettmann (Wine Enthusiast) and Madeline Puckette (Wine Folly).
2. The Garagiste Scholarship: We will never forget presenting our first check, for $10,000, after our very first festival, to the Wine & Viticulture program at Cal Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. Since then, we have donated over $200,000 to help support the next generation of Central Coast winemakers, and some of them have moved on to pour at our festivals.
3. Every Single Winemaker who has ever poured: This includes some breakout winemakers who poured their first vintage to great acclaim - Paix Sur Terre, Nicora, Levo, and Clos Solene who soon grew out of the festival’s maximum of 1,500 cases, and so many more who have become Paso institutions (LXV, Alta Colina, Bodega de Edgar, Vines on the Marycrest, Caliza, Onx, Dilecta, The Farm Winery, Copia Vineyards, to name a few), as well as those who have loved to stay ‘small’ and pour with us every single year. We love you all.
4. Volunteers. Volunteers. Volunteers. This remarkable group who do the ‘glamorous’ wine work - slinging spit buckets, replenishing ice, setting up and breaking down tables, and much more - and all with joie de vino, have become an indispensable part of our extended Garagiste family and are the fuel that drives the Garagiste engine.
5. Community Camaraderie:
Frozen Wine: Imagine arriving with just two hours before a sold-out tasting seminar on a range of oak treatments to find that all the winemakers’ barrel samples (all 16 of them provided by the generous McPrice Myers) are frozen solid (accidentally stored in the wrong side of a poorly designed refrigerator). Community action saved the day as panelist Michael Larner of Larner Winery jumped into action to extract fresh barrel samples in the nick of time! Note: freezing wine doesn’t hurt the flavor. Just thaw and enjoy.:)
No Glasses: That time we miscounted the number of glasses needed for the very first (and surprise sell-out) festival and ran out as guests were still arriving. Without glasses there could be no festival… with minutes to spare and a wild, swerving Smokey-and-the-Bandit run down Creston Road, our pals at Cass Winery provided us with all the glasses we needed.
6. Garagiste Wine Glasses: Cheers to those faithful fans who have collected a signature glass from every single festival! It is astonishing how remarkably few of those glasses have shattered on the floor during the festivals, maybe one or two per festival - a tribute to how important the precious liquid contained in those glasses is to our attendees, and to how well-behaved our fun-loving crowd always is, as well as the quality of our glasses. We have personally witnessed at least one that dropped to the concrete floor only to bounce up and be caught again. True!
7. Olive Oil and Chocolates: The wonderful food vendors that have graced our festivals, including our stalwarts -- Boccabella Olive Oils, Vivant Cheese, Fleur Sauvage Chocolates, Letterpress Chocolates, Sonoma Cheese Factory, Vintage Wine + Eats, and Jeffry’s Wine Country BBQ -- proving that one cannot live on wine alone (I mean you almost can, but…)
8. Rockin’ the After Party: It takes a lotta beer to make good wine, the saying goes, and the same goes for a good ending to a great wine festival. From a kilted AC/DC cover band, to our friend Stephen Rowe and the Lonely Loners, rollicking music (and free beer) has closed out each of our Paso festivals – giving winemakers and attendees the opportunity to let their hair down (at least those that haven’t already), dance a bit and toast our founders as they tap local beer for a grateful crowd.
9. Chefs Ludo & Charlie: Who can forget the world-class pop-up dinner matched with Garagiste wines that world-renowned Chef Ludo Lefebvre, who fell in love with Paso, cooked at our second festival at Thomas Hill Organics. It was one of the most stunning meals any of us have ever eaten. And equally memorable, the two delicious Garagiste Festival dinners, infused with the best of everything Paso prepared by Charles Paladin Wayne at the 2013 and 2015 Festivals, as well as the delicious dinner from Garagiste mainstay, Boccabella Farms’ Johnny Jantz in 2012.
10. Heat Making Waves: Yes, we discovered the hard way that giant fans are no substitute for air conditioning at our inaugural Urban Exposure Festival at Union Station in Los Angeles in 2014 (air conditioning was not a thing when it was built in 1939… nor was it a thing at the historic Women’s Club in Santa Monica for UE in 2017 and 2018). BUT, we also discovered that absolutely nothing, not even drenching sweat, can dampen the fun and enthusiasm of our winemakers and festival attendees!
11. Worldwide Acclaim: Yeah, we are proud of this one, but mostly because it is a tribute to every winemaker who has ever poured at one of our festivals. Among the many accolades we have received are: “Best Wine Festival” in 2018's USA Today's 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards, "Best of the Fests" for 2019 by Fest Forums and "Best Festival" by Sunset Magazine's 'Best of the West.'
12. That First Glow: The unforgettable sunset that bathed the very first Garagiste Festival in Paso Robles (2011) at Windfall Farms in ethereal pink and gold. We had worked so hard to make the festival happen, with only a four-month lead time, and no idea if it would work. Yet there they were, a long line of people waiting to get in that first morning for what turned out to be a (more-than) sold out festival (some still waiting for those glasses to be delivered). At the end of the day, as those festival-goers sipped the last of the many wines they had tasted that day, and our winemakers poured their last drops, the sky lit up, casting a wine-colored glow over everything: The Garagiste Festival, through a decade and a half, is always a wine lover’s dream through true rose-colored glasses.
13. All of You: Our best memories, however, have been of our thousands of guests over the years, as they make new wine discoveries. We thank each and every one of you for making the Garagiste Festival the little engine that could!
