What a weekend! We’ve had such a blast in Traverse City while in town for the 5th Annual Traverse City Wine and Art Festival. The event held at the Village of Grand Traverse Commons celebrating wine, food, art and music featured a packed house, selling out with over 5,000 attendees! There were over 30 wineries present from both Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula pouring samples for happy guests under a giant tent. Some of our favorites included a nice caramel apple cider from our friends over at Chateau de Leelanau, and the 2012 Cab Franc Rose from 45 North.
This year the event was extra special because of the musical guest, “Sugar Man” Rodriguez. Rodriguez is a Detroit native who became a phenomenon in South Africa after a bootlegged version of an album he recorded in the 70’s made it’s way there, yet he was unknown in the states…until now. The Searching For Sugarman documentary chronicles his story and has helped get him the attention he so deserves. Rodriguez played for over an hour at the festival to a packed house and was followed by an amazing group from Grand Rapids, the Crane Wives.
The festival grounds were gorgeous and the weather turned out to be the same. The event was fairly spread out, so we never felt crowded. There were several areas to lounge and sprawl, and there was an entire area towards the back dedicated to local art. My favorite was Mark’s Metal Art – an array of quirky characters made of metal, many holding wine bottles.
Next to the art area was a handful of food vendors. We enjoyed some white fish dip and chips, and a chicken sandwich with asparagus guacamole from the Bay Town Kitchen. I spotted some amazing looking cupcakes, but the wine distracted us from getting back over after dinner.
The event was just plain awesome. So awesome in fact, that this year an additional pre-event was added for the Friday night before the festival – a wine makers party. It was held at the same place under the big white tent, and the wine makers were holding giant balloons with the name of their winery on them. They were accompanied by volunteers that would pour you a sample of wine. Thus you could chat with the makers of the wine while drinking it!
A huge thanks goes out to Andy, Laura and the rest of the team at the LPVA, the wine makers, artists, and the hundreds of volunteers that helped put the event together. It was a flawless event, and one that will keep me going back year after year.
