Gotta Drank! Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival

It's been a busy few weeks where we started with wine tasting and petting zoo in Malibu, hanging in Hollywood for Road House, Downtown for meat and sky high dranks. Then back again for WonderCon and three days of happy hour, Batman V Superman, Silent Rage at The Egyptian and the pop culture show. This weekend we headed down to Anaheim and Disneyland for the month long Food & Wine Festival at California Adventure Park. You see, the lone spot you can drank in Disneyland is the members only Club 33. But at CA Adventure you can grab beer, wine and margaritas almost anywhere. Every weekend of April finds Food Network chefs like Robert Irvine and Guy Fieri, winemakers, beer brewers and whiskey whipper uppers sharing their knowledge and leading workshops. OH and this just in, on Saturday April 15th, you can hang out with actor turned winemaker KURT RUSSELL and hear about his line, Gogi. I'm tied up that weekend otherwise I'd be there kicking it with The Charmed One himself.

Anyhow, there were multiple food and booze stands lining the paths near Cars Land and that Napa Valley inspired area. Cocktail tables were set up and it was pretty busy while being a simple way to make some extra bucks amidst rumors that Disneyland Shanghai is behind schedule and way over budget. For $15 you could sit down and hear from Silverado Vineyards winemaker Jonathan Emmerich. Located in Napa Valley, Silverado is the partial brainchild of Walt Disney's daughter Diane Miller. Starting in 1980, Miller and company started making wine and are now a name amongst names in the business. Emmerich kept things pretty loose as we tasted one white and two reds. Each table was set up with three glasses, a bottle of water and a blank paper mat along with a Disneyland Hotel pen. Several tables were unoccupied and Emmerich told us to grab the extra glasses so the wine wouldn't go to waste. Don't have to tell me twice, yoinks!

Now I'm no wine connoisseur so it all tasted like fruit and whatnot, and was all kind of back of the throat and not very smooth or easy to drink. But I'm not sure how wine is really supposed to taste anyway. Emmerich did share some interesting facts about how watering grapes has changed over the years as once upon a time you'd see the guy next door watering and remember to do the same. Now with the drought and technology, they irrigate using well water per grape vine. He also mentioned that the best time to visit Napa is when the harvest is but it's also like Spring Break where everybody is in town, prices go up and it's hard to get a nice dinner reservation. Instead, come up in February or March when it's empty and relaxing, it's a little cool and you won't get gouged for a room or a meal.