Earlier this year the Charleston Wine + Food Festival (CHSWF) announced a series of summer events, The Sizzle, which kicked off with a series of workshops this month and continues with more offerings this July and August.
Tickets for July and August events are on sale now.
“The goal was to not just have five days each March where people can interact with the Charleston Wine + Food brand,” said CHSWF executive director Alyssa Maute Smith. “We’re looking to engage with our local F&B industry more year round, and also locals and people who might be visiting.”
Guests can choose from 11 different experiences including four bar takeovers, two lunches/brunches, three cooking classes and two signature events. The price points vary, too, starting at $75 for a bar takeover at King BBQ on July 17 and maxing out at $165 for a “big, boozy brunch” with NOLA’s chefs Fredo Nogueira (Cane & Table) and Neal Bodenheimer (Cure) on August 18.
The programming trends seasonal, with “fresh seafood and cold wine,” i.e. summer staples, at chef Shaun Brian (CudaCo)’s The Best Damn Ceviche cooking class ($135) on July 18 and a Chilled Red Summer Happy Hour ($95) with the sommeliers from Graft on August 6.
“Summer in Charleston is really hot … But for people who are from here, you just embrace the heat in the summertime,” said Smith. “We wanted to take that same fun theme and come up with some events that sizzled, that were hot and that really played into that season of summer in Charleston.”
Smith noted that these summer events offer some things that the festival’s March events cannot, including fresh, seasonal produce and seafood that isn’t available in the early spring. She also said that spacing out events over several months gives the CHSWF team some “extra breathing room and space to be creative,” which they don’t always get during the hectic span of festival days in March.
“We’ve been able to be really intentional with the programming,” she said. “On the industry side of things, we’ve been able to bring a platform to highlight what [the F&B community] want to highlight.”
Like the festival itself, The Sizzle features a couple larger, signature events like the Black Tie BBQ ($125) held at Union Station on August 9. CHSWF encourages guests to dress up with “bowties, ball gowns and cowboy boots, or denim on denim” for an evening filled with, well, barbecue, as well as cold Ranch Waters and chilled wines.
There are still a few tickets available for this month’s events, too. If you’re interested in a beverage workshop ($125) that looks at both wine and olive oil, snag a seat for the 7 p.m. seating of Of Wine + Olive Oil: A Croatian Celebration, held on June 27. Another beverage workshop ($115), Amore Amaro! takes place at 6 p.m. on June 29 and dives into the history of the staple Italian beverage. Both workshops take place at CHSWF’s headquarters, located at 635 Rutledge Avenue.
Smith said that she likes seeing locals head to these workshops and events and then stick around — or return again and again — to local bars and restaurants. “You get to form that quick bond and it can last for years,” she said. “That’s something I love so much about the festival — and being able to bring that little spark outside of it, I think it’s going to be really fantastic.”
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