The Story Behind the Start of The San Diego Food and Wine Festival

Bret and Veronica are joined by Michelle Metter, founder of The San Diego Food and Wine Festival, on the origins of the event, and how it's grown.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of San Diego's most anticipated events every year is
the Food and Wine Festival. The Grand Tasting and the
Grand Fiesta are November eighth and ninth.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Joining us on the Cogo News liveline, Festival co founder
Michelle Meda, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Hi, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, first place, I have to know, how did you
come up with this concept? I love these kind of events.
It's like, you know, it's kind of like when buffets
first came around and everybody went, what I can have
as much as I want. I can, I can say everything,
I could taste everything, I could do everything. This is
so cool.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Well, you know, I think, like any really good idea.
It was an afternoon where I was sitting down with
my now business partner. We were just talking about, like
what would we do if we were to just go
do something that we were super passionate about. This is
twenty years ago, so this is you know, it's been
a minute since we started it. And you started looking
at all of the large scale food and wine festivals

(00:52):
but happening in all these cities across the US, and
we didn't have anything here in San Diego, nothing that
was putting a spotlight on all the amazing chefs and
farmers and fishermen and the wineries and just you know
all the great like gastronomic excellence that was happening, and
we thought, well we should do that. We need to
bring that experience and that vibrancy to San Diego, and

(01:14):
we did.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Where is the venue?

Speaker 3 (01:17):
So the San Diego Food and Wine Festival now is
it has grown tremendously over the last twenty years. We
are now rated one of the number one wine and
food festival in the country. USA today gives us that nod.
You know, we've won it several years. And what that
means now is that this event has become like a
convergence event. So there are a lot of events happening.

(01:40):
Everything kind of culminates for us though into our Grand Weekend,
which is the seventhieth and ninth. The seventh we have
a partnership with the James Beard Foundation, so we do
a really great James Beard event over at julip A
Grand Tasting, which if you're only going to do one thing,
you've got to go to the Grand Tasting that is
on the Embarketer part North on Novembers at eighth and

(02:02):
then our Grand Fiesta because again you know, we share
our wonderful border, the US Mexico border. Our fiesta is
a celebration of all of our Latin chefs and lots
of cultural heritage and live music and lots of tacos
and tequila and mescal. And that is at Liberty Stations.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
We're talking to Michelle Metrico, founder of the Big Food
and Wine Festival coming up in San Diego. Now, the
thing that I like most about these festivals is for me,
I get to go see new businesses that I had
never noticed before, or brand new ones that you know,
I haven't had a chance to go to their new

(02:44):
restaurant or their new food card or whatever. I really
like the entrepreneur attitude at these events.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
You know, I think you hit on a really important
point because these events are about discovery. They're about finding
new flavors and restaurants and brands and products that you
would never have an opportunity to go experience in this
format anywhere. I love being able to walk the event

(03:14):
and talk to the chefs and find out like why,
you know, why are you passionate about this dish? And
the other part of this is that there's so many
really amazing brand activations and experiences, and it's kind of
like the you know, the ultimate event for people who
love food. What I also love about this is, you know,

(03:36):
it's a snapshot in time. You know, it gives you
a senses to like how we eat, why we eat,
seasonal ingredients. So not only are you having just a
great time, it's a lot of fun. You're all learning
and being educated and getting a lot of new sites
and sounds and tastes that you've never had.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Before, and probably getting updated on food trends and wine
trends as well. Michelle, real quickly, where can people get tickets?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So they can get tickets at San Diego Wineclassic dot com.
There's a whole array of events to take a look
at on our website.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Perfect, Michelle, thank you so much. I'll see you there great.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Thanks you soon, all right.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Michelle Medder the co founder of the Food and Wine
festival that's happening right here in San Diego.