Red Wine Lovers: Paso Robles Garagiste Festival November 5-7

October 27, 2015 – Cancel your plans for November 5-7 and instead head to Paso Robles for one of the best wine festivals ever.  It’s the Fifth Annual Garagiste Wine Festival held in Paso Robles and Atascadero.  There will be more than 65 “garagiste” winemakers pouring over 200 wines; a five-course winemaker dinner; tasting seminars and the Grand Tasting and much more, especially great local food.

So what does “garagiste” mean?  Garagiste (pronounced garage-east) was a rather derogatory French term that originated in Bordeaux to describe renegade small lot winemakers literally making wine in their garages.  The term is now used in winegrowing areas from Canada to South Africa to New Zealand to describe winemakers who produce small, artisan lots (less than 1,500 cases a year), with minute care and attention to detail.  The term has gone from uncomplimentary to fashionably sought after.
“We founded The Garagiste Festivals five years ago to gather and bring attention to, the growing but under-the-radar population of micro-production winemakers who we knew were making some of the most exciting, cutting-edge wines in the world,” said Doug Minnick, Co-founder of The Garagiste Festival. “As our Festivals have grown and expanded, they have helped spur the growth of our participating wineries, as well as of the Garagiste movement itself. It has been a true win-win-win: matching consumers with the hard-to-find artists they enjoy discovering, helping garagiste wineries find a highly targeted and self-selected audience, and all in support of our work with Cal Poly.”

According to Wines & Vines, an industry magazine, there are nearly 5,000 Garagiste wineries in the U.S., accounting for more than half of all U.S. wineries.  About half are located in California.  Distribution is always a problem for small winemakers so most of them never make it onto retail shelves. But they can be bought online, or via their wine clubs, or in some cases through their tasting rooms.

The non-profit Garagiste Festivals benefit The Garagiste Scholarship Fund of the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture department.  Tickets are still available and event prices are reasonable.  To buy tickets and for the full festival schedule, details, participating winemakers, etc. go to http://californiagaragistes.com/buy-tickets/