Epcot International Food and Wine Festival

Visitors are planning their trips already for the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival. And for good reason! This annual festival held at EPCOT boasts a variety of special events, tastings, and demonstrations along with some incredible food and wine of course!

This year's theme is Passport to the World of Flavors and promises to be an incredible and unforgettable experience for all who attend.

World Showcase Booths
Disney is introducing three new Epcot Food and Wine Festival booths at this year's festival: Hawaii, the Caribbean Islands, and Portugal. Menu items for these booths include a Kalua pork slider with sweet and sour pineapple chutney (Hawaii), Ropa Vieja (braised beef) with white rice (Caribbean Islands), and a calamari salad with olives and smoked paprika (Portugal). More menu details for the new booths can be found on the Disney Food Blog.

Also appearing this year will be a Scandinavia booth that will feature Swedish meatballs with lingon berries!

Special Events
Every year there are a variety of special events that require a significant extra cost and advance tickets but are absolutely incredible, informative, and fun! Party for the Senses is an event offered only on Saturdays and features live entertainment by Cirque du Soleil. If you love dessert then the 3D Delicious Dessert Discovery is the event for you! It features a variety of desserts, a lot of alcohol and a special viewing of Illuminations.

The Signature Dining experiences are held at some of Disney's best restaurants. Enjoy an amazing dinner while a Chef walks you through each bite. Some of this year's restaurants include Raglan Road, Victoria and Albert's, Jiko, and Kouzzina.

New Events
New events at this year's Food and Wine Festival include the Kitchen Memories Healthy Dining Event, HGTV Home Entertaining Seminars, and the Chocolate Discoveries Seminars .

At the Kitchen Memories Healthy Dining Event join celebrity chefs Andrew Zimmern, Chris Cosentino, and Bryan Voltaggio as they show how cooking can be a fun, family activity! Each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the festival HGTV will host home entertaining seminars.

Seminars and Demonstrations at the Festival Center
Disney also offers seminars and demonstrations that are low cost and sometimes even free! Yes you read that right free! One of the new seminars for 2011 are their Mixology seminars, where guests can enjoy a unique happy hour! Other seminars include the Wine and Beverage Seminars and Authentic Taste Seminars.

Wine and Dine Marathon Weekend
The weekend of September 30th thousands will gather to race through EPCOT and Hollywood Studios for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon and Half Marathon Relay. There is also a Family Fun Run 5k that takes participants through Animal Kingdom. Even if you don't want to run 13.1 miles you can still get a ticket to the Finish Line party that happens after hours at EPCOT.

For more information about the Food and Wine Festival visit the Disney Food Blog!

What is your favorite part of the Food and Wine Festival?

Stelle wrote on Thu, 07/07/2011 - 20:45:

Stelle's picture

So excited about this! My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Carol wrote on Tue, 07/12/2011 - 22:17:

Carol's picture

Love love love the food and wine festival. We go and make an evening out of it and eat dinner "around the world." First we see what is on the menu that we are interested in sampling to determine which way we will start going to the countries because you want to end up where you want dessert. To end the night we go to the Eat to the Beat concert. Our favorite foods have been the Fisherman's Pie, Cheese Fondue, anything from China and the cannoli for dessert.

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