COASTAL LIVING MAGAZINE NAMES THE TOP TEN SEAFOOD & WINE FESTIVALS

Birmingham, AL —COASTAL LIVING magazine names the top ten seafood and wine festivals in its June issue, on newsstands now.
The list includes:

1. Stone Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival
Longboat Key, Florida, October 23–26, 2008
The Colony resort has rung in the past 18 fall crab seasons with a four-day fete that showcases the sweet meat. Highlights include cooking demonstrations, wine offerings, a beachfront Sand-Between-Your-Toes Tasting, and a gala with wines and a seven-course meal.

2. Sushi & Sake Festival
Long Beach, California, June 14, 2008
This month’s celebration—the first of what may become an annual event—offers the best of Japanese raw seafood and rice wine. The festival will feature a sake pavilion for tastings and seminars, presentations by professionals from the Sushi Chef Institute, music and dance performances, and sumo and martial arts exhibitions.

3. Kapalua Wine & Food Festival
Maui, Hawaii, June 26–29, 2008
Started in 1981, this festival has become one of Maui’s most popular, attracting chefs, winemakers, critics, and food lovers by the thousands to the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua. The event invites sippers to tour the world’s best wine regions during a tasting overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The revelry concludes Sunday evening, when more than a dozen chefs offer their two best dishes, paired with the host’s and Master Sommelier’s wine choices.

4. Clayoquot Oyster Festival
British Columbia, November 20–23, 2008
Shellfish farms on Vancouver Island’s west coast harvest roughly 50,000 gallons of oysters a year. The region celebrates the bounty each November—known to locals as “Oysterember”—by uniting area chefs and British Columbia wineries for an oyster-centric event. Restaurants host oysters-and-wine-pairing dinners, and oystermen and scientists give farm tours and seminars.

5. Crab & Wine Days
Mendocino, California, January 23–24, 2009
Showcasing locally caught crab and locally produced wines, this celebration kicks off Taste Mendocino, a three-weekend festival welcoming winter’s Dungeness crab season. Festivities include cooking classes, crab tours, fishing excursions, crustacean-and-wine dinners, and the annual crab cake cook-off and wine tasting at Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor.

6. Harvest on the Harbor
Portland, Maine, October 23–25, 2008
A culinary hot spot, Portland proves the perfect locale for a weekend with top chefs and international wines. The festival will offer tastings, seminars, and dinners featuring local bounty. Highlights include tastings with caviar retailer Browne Trading Company, the “seafood supplier to the stars.” Festivities conclude with a gala dinner by master chef David Pasternack.

7. Cayman Cookout
Grand Cayman Island, January 16–19, 2009
The chef behind the local Ritz-Carlton restaurant, Blue by Eric Ripert, will host a first-annual celebration of fine wines and Cayman cuisine. The open-air event, which takes place on Seven Mile Beach, includes wine-pairing demonstrations, tastings, seminars, and inventive seafood dishes.

8. Newport Seafood & Wine Festival
Oregon, February 20–22, 2009
This culinary celebration knows how to have fun, with themes such as a previous year’s “Yo Ho Ho, It’s Seafood and Wine” (complete with dancing pirates). Attendees sip on Pinot and Cab, as well as lesser-known options such as mead wine (made from honey), and enjoy local oyster, crab, and other seafood dishes.

9. Taste of the Beach
Outer Banks, North Carolina, March 5–9, 2009
This festival has more than 40 events showcasing local seafood and libations from around the world. Festivities involve seafood and wine-pairing demonstrations and dinners, cooking classes, and a chowder cook-off. Two crowd favorites: the tapas crawl tour of area restaurants and the Champagne lounge, which treats guests to bubbly, oysters, caviar, and massage treatments.

10. Pebble Beach Food & Wine
Pebble Beach, California, April 16–19, 2009
Earlier this year, this famous golfing destination earned a new claim to fame when celebrity chefs and some 200 wineries gathered for a four-day gastronomic celebration. Highlights included cooking demonstrations by master chefs such as Thomas Keller, Michael Mina, Tom Colicchio, and Masaharu Morimoto. A rare-wine auction and tastings with Silver Oak, Château Margaux, and Dom Pérignon rounded out the festivities.
 

A national magazine that celebrates life along the coast, Coastal Living (www.coastalliving.com) is the source of inspiration and information for people who live or dream of living a coastal lifestyle. Marking 11 years of publication in 2008, Coastal Living serves a total audience of 4 million.

A leader in lifestyle information, Birmingham, Ala.-based Southern Progress Corporation A leader in lifestyle information, Birmingham, Ala.-based Southern Progress Corporation (www.southernprogress.com) publishes Southern Living, Cooking Light, Health, Coastal Living, Southern Accents, Cottage Living, and Sunset magazines, and books through Oxmoor House. It also operates a direct-selling division, Southern Living At HOME, and has a strong Web presence through branded portals, including MyRecipes.com and MyHomeIdeas.com, as well as 10 individual Web sites. Southern Progress is a subsidiary of Time Inc.
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