Charleston Food and Wine Festival | Out Of Office
Earlier this month I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina with my bestest friend, my wife. We’ve been to Charleston several times and it has become one of our favorite places to vacation. We could even see it as our future home someday. I will be sure to write a blog at some point on why Charleston is so awesome and our latest vacation there, but today isn’t about that.
As we started to fall in love with Charleston and began learning more about its culture, history, and traditions, going to the Charleston Food and Wine Festival was an event that we added to our list of things to do. Unfortunately, like so many other events, the festival was canceled due to covid in 2020 and then again in 2021. Even 2022 seemed in limbo with tickets going on sale during the height of the delta and omicron variants, but we had faith and bought our tickets anyway and I’m glad we did.
The festival is a multiday event with the main experience taking place just north of downtown at River Front Park in what they call Culinary Village. There are also several other experiences throughout the city. A ticket to Culinary Village will take you far. The grounds are filled with local and non-local restaurants, breweries, and spirit vendors offering you endless product samples.
Tickets are fairly affordable at $135. However, we went with the CV Pass ($295) which granted us a few other perks like early entry, an expedited line into to festival, a nice cup (that I accidentally broke), a bag, and maybe some other stuff I don’t remember. To sum things up, you attend this festival to eat and drink so go with an empty stomach. In addition, they also have live music and some little activities throughout the grounds.
Some highlights for me:
Obviously, the large variety of food and drinks. I wish I did a better job of remembering specific vendors, but I had too good a time.
I do remember having a quail dish that was awesome, pork belly, and some fancy chicken nuggy thing that a drunken mad sold us on. He said he had gone through the line over four times already and, well, we were in.
There was a Jimmy Buffet cover band. While we are by no means parrot heads, we have been to a few JB concerts, and we do enjoy his timeless tunes. After filling up on food and having a few too many cocktails, it was nice grabbing a seat on the lawn and listening to some hits.
Lastly, the silent disco. Never been to one but they had one at the festival and it was a delight. Basically, there are DJs and everyone is wearing wireless headphones. It was fun to watch people getting their grove on and having no clue what they were listening to. Eventually, we decided to participate. Leah has some moves.
Anyways, we would definitely do the event again. Next time, we would also like to attend some of the evening events at culinary village and events around the city but those require additional ticket purchases. If you find yourself looking for a new adventure to make the most of our out-of-office experiences, give Charleston and their Food and Wine Festival a try.