Food and wine festivals allow people to diversify their palates in one day, a feat previously attainable only by cramming five frozen dinners and a variety pack of juice boxes into a blender. Savor expanding horizons with today’s Groupon to the Tennessee Food and Wine Festival, held at Knoxville Convention Center on October 22 from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Choose between the following options:
- For $20, you get a wine-tasting package for two (up to a $50 total value). The package includes the following:
- General admission for two (a $20 value online; a $30 value at the door)
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Wine tasting for two (a $20 value)<p>
- For $34, you get a kids’ culinary-class package (up to an $84 value). The package includes the following:
- One admission to a kids’ culinary class, valid for students in grades 9–12, which includes admission to the festival (a $69 value). The class goes from 8:45 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
- One general admission for a guest (included in price of class), plus admission for a second guest (a $10 value online; a $15 value at the door)<p>
Sip- and bite-size samples tempt visitors to the first-ever Tennessee Food and Wine Festival as they meander past more than 100 exhibitors’ booths. Guests nosh on fare from local eateries such as Alfresco Pasta’s small-batch, traditionally made pastas, which can be dipped in a Ron Reed’s mason jar of preservative-free barbecue sauce or turned into macaroni portraits of Martin Van Buren. At the wine tasting, adult attendees can also savor a range of fermented grape juices from central Tennessee’s award-winning Beans Creek Winery or the Italian-style, Bacchus-impersonating libations of Hillside Winery.
Alternatively, young culinary wizards can sharpen banquet-hall cooking skills during a Royal Recipes lesson taught by former Buckingham Palace chef Darren McGrady. After a photo shoot with the regal cook, students in grades 9–12 learn to prepare meals fit for a king, queen, or a court of begrudging siblings. Parents who redeem the additional general-admission pass can arrive at 11:45 a.m. to sample their offspring’s cookery, or show up early to offer tips or micromanage their kids’ ladling technique.