Sample the Sierra

If I could give it no stars, I would. My wife And I had a horrible experience attending sampling of the Sierra. I was eager to attend because I love the food served by many of the vendors participating, and I wanted to experience some places we’ve never been.
After paying $ 30.00 We were greeted by thousands of people FENCED IN ON ONE SHORT CITY BLOCK. (up Ski-​Run) the vendors booths we lined up both sides of the street. This set up created one line after another up the entire block. In order to get from one end to the other, we had to break each line creating frustration for us as well as the people we cut in front of just to pass through. Peeking into what each booth offered, I saw wine pouring and hors’d ovres (sp). I wasn’t about to spent 15 – 20 minutes in each line to taste a morsel of food.
In anger I went to ask for my money back. The lady stated the lines are for wine tasting only the food side is off to the left side of there table. So I gave it another shot. The food I did taste was fine but that did not offset the fact there was no seating, no comfort. Just aggravation. To summarize, Oversold, under represented, and way overpriced. Try using a city park

This event, in its 4^th year is evolving, and they continue to work at tweaking it.
The event had a great turnout, price remained the same at $ 30. Event was 1−5pm.
Seemed to be more vendors this year, could just be that this year they included the vendors within the wine/​beer garden area.
2 Hard liquor booths, and at least 1 brewery. I think there were at least 10 wineries, all were paired with a restaurant, and a local farm.
Lines were still somewhat long, up to 40 people deep, and most of the pours were 1– 1 ½ tbsp, some lines were shorter, so you at least had a choice of only going to those.
They had a large stage with a cooking competition going on, music was going most of the time from both ends of the venue.
A water station was in the middle, very important IMO.
Standouts:
Getaway café– French Toast and blueberries
Primo’s– Olive Tampenade on crostini
Tahoe Private Chef– Apple Crostini?
Blue Angel Café’s — Thai Curry Vegetables
Some booths ran out of stuff:
Lava Cap Winery
MacDuff’s Pub
*3:30pm
Thoughts:
Maybe they could do the plates that have a wine holder, to cut down on garbage and expense.
Have wineries pick a white and red, keep it simple, so the lines move better, it takes time when people get up there, and have 7 wines to pick from, having a big conversation about the the merits of the different wines may be interesting, and informative, but it doesn’t make for happy line mates ;)
More space! lol It seems like it already has grown, but it needs to grow more.
More tables with seating, I saw some sitting down with full glasses of wine, and some with a bottle on there table, the rest of us were envious, but table turnover was maybe hourly. I think there were 4 – 5 tables, and I still don’t know where someone got the glass of wine.
I’m curious if the participants get to pick their partners, or if you get assigned to someone? Vendors can have a wide range of enthusiasm, organization, and quality of product.