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Music And Wine Festivals

 

5 Best Music & Wine Festivals in the Nation

Slip into your dancing shoes, folks—here are the five national music festivals Wine Enthusiast gives props to for their pours.

By Ian D. White

 Music And Wine Festivals

It’s hard to find a music festival that doesn’t incorporate wine and food in some capacity, but it’s even harder to find the few who do it well. Slip into your dancing shoes, folks—here are the five national music festivals Wine Enthusiast gives props to for their pours.


Outside Lands is a three-day extravaganza of booze, bites and beats in San Francisco’s lush Golden Gate Park. The lineup of A-list bands—Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Stevie Wonder, Metallica and Skrillex, to name a few—match the equally impressive bottlings being poured in the designated wine area, Wine Lands. The best part? Dozens of vintners from celebrated brands like Caymus Vineyards, Turley Wine Cellars, Hess Collection and The Prisoner, and local favorites like Tres Sabores Winery and Long Meadow Ranch, will be there to serve their prized pours.
Aug 9–11, 2013; $215 for 3-day ticket


BottleRock may have started as a rumor (some still believe it is), but it’s about to become a 40,000-person reality for the small town of Napa. At this wine-and-music festival, you’ll pick from a long list of bottlings and bites—plus it’s packed with VIP parties. Pairing over 60 stellar bands, including the Black Keys, Ben Harper and Primus, with wines from Miner Family Winery, Lloyd Cellars, Flora Springs and Grgich Hills Estate, BottleRock has something for everyone. To balance the blend, they’ve also added a killer lineup of famous comedians like Jim Gaffigan and Kristen Schaal to perform throughout the event.
May 9–12, 2013; tickets from $139–$329


Great Googamooga, held at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, claims to be “an amusement park of food, drink and music,” and considering the masterminds behind Outside Lands conceptualized it, it may very well be. The event features a wine list of more than 100 selections from the likes of Copain from Healdsburg, California to the local Red Hook Winery, and beyond, as well as 85 local food vendors. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Flaming Lips are just two of the many musical groups to grace the Googamooga stage.
May 17–19, 2013; tickets from $54.50–$79.50 per day


Lollapalooza in Chicago will play host to top-selling bands like The Cure, Mumford & Sons and Nine Inch Nails, and it features a notably funky wine scene. Don’t expect traditional-style sipping here. If it’s anything like last year’s event, it will feature esoteric finds, sport bottle-style glassware, and the use of the wine-and-personality app Pass the Bottle to help you pick your pours. Food vendors for 2013 have not yet been announced, but if it’s anything like last year’s, which was curated by James Beard-awarding winning chef Graham Elliot, you can expect more than a humble state fair corndog.
August 2–4, 2013; tickets are $95


The Austin Food and Wine Festival focuses on food and vino. But don’t worry, music doesn’t play second fiddle. This year, get a taste of Allan Stone—whose first album jumped into the top 10 of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart—along with Delta Spirit and Whiskey Shivers. Of course, you can expect to see the stars of the celebrity chef firmament—Marc Murphy, Marcus Samuelsson and Andrew Zimmern, to name a few—to either appear at or compete in the Rock Your Taco showdown. Wine world all-stars like Charles Smith and Mark Oldman will also be in attendance. In addition to all of the food, wine and music events, attendees can enroll in education events and big-name tastings.
April 26–28, 2013, tickets from $250–$850

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