How to Maximize Your Wine Tasting Experience at The Garagiste Festival – Paso Robles
November 7-9 Small Batch Wine Makers Pour Their Vino For You
Attending a wine festival can be overwhelming. You can’t taste every California Wine in the room. There is simply not enough time to sip and spit all that vino. Then there are side effects from all that alcohol and your burned palate.
So how do you approach tasting at the Garagiste Festival this weekend in Paso Robles where 57 small batch wineries pour 48 varieties of wine?
So much wine, so little time.
We connected with Garagiste Festival Co-founder Doug Minnick to get a heads up on his upcoming event November 7-9.
We asked Minnick how you should approach the Garagiste Festival, what are things participants miss, what should they know? What’s the best way to taste at Garagiste?
He begins with three words, “Have a plan.”
| “We’ve done close to 40 of these events now and at every event I find some variety I’ve never tasted or perhaps never even heard of.” -Garagiste Festival Co-founder Doug Minnick |
“There are two pages in the program called ‘Who’s Pouring What.’ We send those out prior to the event so everybody’s got a heads up. You can see who’s pouring what.” It’s a list of all the wineries pouring, listed by variety.
He says by example, if you want to taste Syrah, “You know Kendrick is pouring, and you know Ultimate Tulie is pouring. Whatever all these different wineries are pouring,” it’s in the two pages.
And this is important, because he says, “I mean, we’ve done close to 40 of these events now and at every event I find some variety I’ve never tasted or perhaps never even heard of, which is the beauty of the micro wine maker, right?”
At his festival you’ll find uncommon varietals like, Moschofilero, Negrette, Falanghina, Trebbiano, Valdigue and Vidiano. Have you ever heard of those? We haven’t. Its time to sample these outliers. You’ll also find all your favorites, Cabernet, Zin, Syrah, Sparkling, Pinot Noir, Red Rhone & White blends, etc.
Garagistes can afford to do this kind of thing (small batches of uncommon wines) because they don’t make enough wine to satisfy the needs of a distributor he says. “So they’re free from the demands of a distributor.”
“You can make two barrels of something, four barrels of something, and make that work selling it direct to consumer. I mean, one of my favorite things about the festival is this variety of wines you can try.” He likes to find unusual wines as well as enjoying typical vino.
He adds, “It’s a good idea to go through this Who’s Pouring What, and say, okay, I want to see this winery. I’ve always wanted to try them, whatever they’re pouring. Or you can say, gosh, here’s a wine I’ve never tried before. I want to try this.”
“And because you obviously can’t taste everything, have a plan. That’s my recommendation.”
The 15th installment of the Garagiste Festival runs Friday through Sunday, November 7-9. Tickets are still available.
Also, be aware of their Garagiste Festival Wine Tasting Pass that is good for the entire 2026 year. At $69 it’s a great deal giving you Buy One Get One (BOGO) wine tastes at wineries associated with the Garagiste Festival. The other great thing about this: reservations are not required (at most wineries.) You can surf the local wineries without having to keep a schedule.
Information will be available at the festival and is currently on their website.
Look for us at the tables where wineries offer Moschofilero, Negrette, Falanghina, Trebbiano, Valdigue and Vidiano wines.
This will be a good weekend for exploring interesting wines.
Some notes on our wine ranking system.
Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.
– -✰ means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰ means -Not liking it too much
✰ means -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰+ + means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+ with a slash, it means we disagree.
