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I’m breaking with my own tradition here: usually I wait to post about the Epcot Food & Wine Festival until closer to when it will actually start. We’ve got just over a month until it kicks off, so why am I writing about it now?
I’m doing so in case anyone reading this is interested in going, and wants to sign up for one of the seminars or other special events. As of right now, some are sold out but others still have spaces available. Slots are going fast, so sign up ASAP if you’re interested. Here’s a quick summary of the festival before we get into details about the seminars: The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, now in its 17th year, will run from September 28 to November 12.
It brings in vendors selling cuisines from all over the world. I really mean all over: this year the international market place will have 29 booths (new this year are Florida local and Terra). You can find anything from traditional fare like American, French, and Italian, to more exotic cuisine like Moroccan, Argentinian, and Scandinavian. The rest of the festival is full of opportunities to taste food and wine, to learn about the food-making process, to hear from chefs about their personal culinary philosophies, to relax on the lawn listening to good music, and more.
The seminars, which require additional fees on top of the price of admission to the Food & Wine Festival, are: Party for the Senses, 3D Disney’s Dessert Discovery, Culinary Demonstrations, Mixology Seminars, and Wine/Beverage Seminars. Those last three are rather self-explanatory: learn how to create great food and drinks from professionals. Party for the Senses is an exclusive event with special international food, private concerts, and a Cirque du Soleil performance. The Dessert Discoveries involves a special viewing of IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, with tasty desserts and cordials as the refreshments.
There are a variety of other special events going down at the Food & Wine Festival this year. I’ll get to the general admission ones in a moment, but if you are interested in booking a special event, take note: they include Sweet Sundays, which are breakfast buffets hosted by professional chefs demonstrating how to prepare 3 desserts; The Discovery of Chocolate, a journey through chocolate and wine pairings lead by a chocolatier (what more do you need to know?), and more.
The Food & Wine Festival offers more seminars and events with its general admission than I could possibly list here. Highlights include yet another chocolate demonstration, this time by Ghiradelli, a real-life watermelon patch with demonstrations and advice from The National Watermelon Promotion Board, Home Entertaining Seminars from HGTV, and authentic taste seminars.
Each weekend of the Food & Wine Festival will include multiple concerts from a variety of famous performers and bands, as part of the Eat to the Beat concert series. Acts playing the festival include Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Gin Blossoms, Boyz II Men, the Pointer Sisters, Billy Ocean, Blues Traveler, and more.
For full details of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, including links to book tickets to special events, visit its official website.
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*(This image by miss-britt is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
