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17th Annual ZAP Festival

The ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates & Producers) Festival is what every wine nerd is wishing for. It's what Comdex was to nerds. What the Love Festival is to ravers. What the San Diego Comic Con is to...well...nerds.

I'm telling you all of this now, even though the event isn't until January 23-26, because I love you. I want you to have the time to get cheap flight tickets, to book your hotel room, to let people know that you'll be in San Francisco for 3 days and they should be there too.

On Wednesday you'll be going to "Flights" with some of the big brains of wine. On Thursday is the Wine and Food Pairing. I went to this one last year and was blown away. I got to drink some Zinfandel's from the 70's and eat it with food prepared by one of America's top chefs. I learned more about wine and food pairing in this few hours than the wine steward at Applebee's did over his entire lifetime.

Friday night is an evening with the winemakers. It's a fancy-shmancy dinner with an auction of some of the coolest Zinfandel things you can buy. So, bring your Visa card, because at the Friday Night Winemakers Dinner and Auction they don't let you leave sober and they don't take American Express.

That's not entirely true, I'm pretty sure they take American Express.

Saturday the 26th is the main event. If this were Burning Man, this would be "The Burn." 260+ wineries will cram themselves in to Fort Mason and offer up some of their best for you to taste. You better spit because there's no way you'll get through them all without it. The wineries don't just bring the wines that they have the most of laying around, plenty of it is great and you will not be disappointed. If you can only do one day of the event, this is the day you want to be there.

We may even get a Martini Groove group together to walk around with martini glasses for them to pour their wine in. Who's laughing now????

ZAP's 17th Annual Zinfandel Festival

Comments

Dr. Bamboo said…
My West Coast envy is showing...I would LOVE to take my wine-loving wife to this.

The "husband points" I'd score would be off the charts.;-)
jimmyp said…
I want to join your group for this one.

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