San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival

First time coming to this annual event and it won’t be my last. This event is for the true foodie’s out there. Only the best restaurants and wineries were here and they were giving away samples of delicious bites. Of course, admission to this event doesn’t come cheap as tickets are $ 145 a pop. But it truly is worth it as long as you come with an empty stomach and desire for wine. My gf and I aren’t wine experts yet so we didn’t fully take advantage of the wine selections. But for the ones I did try (i.e. prosecco, pinot grigio, merlot) they were very rich. I can’t tell the difference between vineyards so they are tasted similar to me. The food, on the other hand, was massively diverse from seafood, american, italian, mexican, desserts, etc. My favorite, oddly enough, were the mini tacos from Rubios. Their tacos has cheese grilled into the tortilla and the chicken was juicy. I also liked the scallop in ponzu sauce as well as bacon/​bison burgers. I don’t remember which restaurants these came from. The best drink there was the fresh juice bar from the mexican booth because that day was so hot and these drinks were icy cold. Some advice I would give to future goers is to not grab the bag of swag in the beginning because it gets heavy and you may end up carrying the bag around all day. It got quite heavy and uncomfortable. Bring sunglasses and sunscreen because the venue is out in the open with the sun blaring down on everyone. But how can you complain with the blue sky and glistening ocean as the backdrop? Parking was not tough, BUT i recommend coming an hour before the event starts. I ended up parking in the lot in Seaport Village and getting it validated. I’m definitely coming back next year!

My boyfriend surprised me by taking me to the Grand Tasting part of the festival. For foodies and wine lovers, this is THE place to go! You have the San Diego bay on one side and massive amounts of booths giving away unlimited samples of their delightful and tasty creations and their prized wines on the other side. The best chefs in SD come here every year to showcase not only their creativity, but also their talent, the quality ingredients being served at their restaurants, and their cooking technique. Life is good!
Parking can be a bit hard, as the event doesn’t have their own designated parking lot. So it’s best to come early. Upon entry of the event, you are given a cute little tray and a wine glass to use throughout the festival and take home as a souvenir. My favorite complimentary bites included the crab cakes, smoked sword fish, caviar (yes, I said caviar!), and grilled octopus. Other bites included bacon-​wrapped shrimp and grits, shrimp tacos, octopus tostadas, smoked pork mac and cheese, cannolis, and much more. As for wine, I really loved the Rosatello booth. I tried their white and pink wine selections… amazing! The mimosa booth was amazing too! I tried their pomegranate mimosa and was really impressed. I came back for their mango mimosa but they were closed! With all the food and drinks, you get full very quickly… sadly I was too stuffed to try most of the poke booths. I guess I would have to come back next year!

What an awesome event! I won two tickets to this event from Unilocal North County on Instagram (yes they have an Instagram and you should follow it!).
A friend and I debated taking an über from my house since it is about 10 mins away, but unfortunately we decided to drive so she ended up needing to be a DD. I would recommend avoiding driving at any way possible, because there are tons of drinks to try, and you are going to want to try them all!
The wine: there was a huge selection of great local and non local wineries to taste but that was not all! We were surprised that there was actually a large selection of other alcoholic drinks available for tasting: a few craft beers, Stella, vodka cocktails, craft cocktails from bars, margaritas, and so much more! I was very impressed with the large selection.
The food: there was a large and wide variety selection here as well. It ranged from a Chipotle taco bar to small bites from some of the restaurants around SD to tastes of the Cravory’s cookies. There were also some free samples/​bags of things like Way Better Chips and all natural popcorns and macadamia but candies.
We had a lot of fun and were super full by the end of the event. I would definitely go back again next year – thanks so much Unilocal!!!

WOW, now I know why this event is called Wine and Food Festival vs Food and Wine Festival. I’m a foodie and this event didn’t disappoint. We had general admission tickets for the Grand Tasting Event. We arrived about 30 mins after the start of the event and we went in without any lines.
For 3 hours, the food and wine event was worth it if you eat lots. I have a small stomach so drinking a couple of glasses of alcohol and about a handful of food, I was so already full!
The lines were reasonable for each booth and I didn’t wait longer than 5 mins. The booths extended along the embarcadero so save room for all the good eats and samples. Bring your own bag since you’ll be carrying home some food samples and souvenirs. This year they gave out a couple bags to bring your stuff, but bring your own just in case!
There is no dedicated parking for the event so you’re left with street parking or convention center parking. If you come towards the end of the event you’ll luck out. There’s no line and usually people leave after a couple hours.
We came in a group of 6 (Chris, Melanio, Rianne, Jojo and Glen) and had a blast. Would love to go again!

This was my first year experiencing the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival and it was great. I thought the venue was a perfect fit to feature the beautiful views of Sand Diego and they had a great mix of restaurants, wineries, breweries, and vendors.
We had a wonderful time and will definitely go back next year.

If you want the best food and wine festival that San Diego has to offer, you go here. Yeah, you’ll pay for it, but it’s worth it. Especially if you love food. And, well, I luuuurve food!
This is my 4^th time attending the event. (Thank you Melanio F for the hookup! *heart*) With a couple of hundred food and drink vendors, choices are astounding. This is a great way for restaurants, vendors, drink purveyors and whosits or whatsits to showcase their goods. Within the first 30 minutes, I was stuffed, sleepy and happily buzzed. By the time an hour and a half rolled around, I was pleasantly exhausted.
Parking at Seaport Village will cost you $ 3 for the first 2 hours and $ 2 every 30 minutes thereafter. You will need to get your ticket validated, by purchasing something at Seaport and then you have to deal with the tourists and traffic. Forget parking at any of the hotels. Most don’t offer self-​parking and valet parking is $ 35+. Feel free to park there if you’re ballin’. Since I’m not (ballin’), the 6^th St and K Parkade for $ 1 an hour, usually works for me. If you don’t want to walk, Über or Lyft it.
As for weather, it’s hard to predict what the weather will be like. Usually, it’s either overcast or it rained. This year, the sun was blazing and we occasionally had to take shelter wherever we could find shade. Oh, and some advice for you ladies — keep the stiletto heels at home. You may end up walking on grass.
Fun time all around, especially hanging with Melanio F, Joanne B, Glenn, Maria C and Chris. It was great running into other friends (hi, Maribel!), as well. If it’s this hot next year, I’m bringing a hat. Can’t wait!

Th Grand Tasting is my favorite party of year (that I don’t plan of course) and I love seeing what the cream of the chef crop in SD is up too.
Tickets are pricey, but tastings are generous and it’s worth it. The drinks you’re offered alone would cost that much anyways. Plus all the foods and kick back coupons and what not: Save your foodie festival monies and spend it all on this one!
This year it was spread out and larger than ever before– a bit more crowded too, but not too bad. Some of my favorite partners and peeps were there, plus I tried a few things I hadn’t tasting before. My hands down favorite was the wonton tuna taco from Bang Bang-​excellent job guys!
Another great thing about this event is trying new cocktails and liq ours. Pace yourself people-you’ll be yelling about how you feel like you’re at the «Catalina Wine Mixer» in no time.
Go, I tell ya, go.

No joke, the finest possible food experience ever in San Diego.
After a stroke of luck beyond any other, the Man and I scored free passes to eat, drink and socialize our way into oblivion. The wines, divine. The food, beyond anything we could have imagined. And the people watching?! Even better.
Never have I been surrounded by more people just stoked on life than that Saturday. I mean after cups of soup from Underbelly, a Slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ snack and petite bites from an innumerable array of other vendors how could you not be?
And if the ocean of wine wasn’t enough… there was tequila too. Damn good tequila. Fortaleza, which is better than Patron in my humble opinion.
So after a day of drinks on the water, armfuls of sunglasses, samples and swag, I honestly could not have been more impressed.
San Diego. You brought it.

Excellent venue, amazing food, fun wine. This was our second time in 5 years and it only gets better. I recommend the early entry to take advantage of the food before the crowds hit, that being said they had much more food this time than last. Beautiful day for it. Really could not have asked for a better Saturday.

ONLY for the 5K. We ran the 5K they held, and it was a very well managed event. Course was cramped, but the staggered start, ample post run food and fun vibe made it over all a good experience. Kudos on a special set up for less expensive parking.

This is by far the best food and drink festival ever! This is my fourth year volunteering then attending the event and it is always amazing. The quality of vendors is outstanding! It is impossible to hit every vendor so don’t even try. The best thing to do is eat and drink, don’t just drink like I did the first year. All the best restaurants are there so try their yummy food. You also get to drink as much as you can of beer, wine and liquor. The view is amazing and you get tons of free stuff. It may be expensive but it is worth every penny!

I have never been to a food & wine festival of any sort, so I wasn’t too sure what to expect. Despite some negative thoughts I conjured up about the layout, it actually went very smooth!
The location was epic! Right on the harbor… and though this shouldn’t weigh in on my rating, the weather was impeccable! The food set up was another force to be reckoned with. Slaters 50/​50, Neighborhood, Soda & Swine??? The list seriously goes on, and I didn’t fall short of trying something from each and every one of these food vendors.
Now, if I’m being honest, I am not a massive wino, nor do I pretend to be a quazi-​somlier, but the spread of juice here was incredibly impressive. I tried more than a handful of different kinds from different vineyards. I’m starting to like wine now…
Next year, without question, I am going to be sure to make this event (and not wear white clothes).

Hands down, undisputed and without a doubt the best food and wine festival in San Diego.
I anxiously await this event every year and it has yet to disappoint. I dunno, 150, 200, maybe 250 vendors? It’s overwhelming in the best possible way… gluttony! All the big boys in the SD restaurant scene show up to play, and «bringing it» is the name of the game.
Who brought it?
Blind Burro
Neighborhood
Noble Experiment
Puesto
Acqua Al 2
Who didn’t?
This is tough… mama taught me right. If you don’t have anything else to say, don’t say anything at all. Especially with so much greatness in attendance, why harp on the weakest links.
See ya next year!

I was disappointed for what we paid. Several of the wineries we wanted to try were only available in the VIP tent. Really? After what we paid??? Also, the event was advertised as going from 12 — 3, but event personnel told the wineries to stop pouring at 2:45.

Wow!!! Awesome event! I so lucky to have the opportunity to attend this event. Thanks to Brad for the tickets!