Sip and Savor at Ocean Breeze Wine Festival on Diamond Beach & $5 off Admission

Cape May County's first annual premium wine festival kicks off at Bungalow No. 1 Beach Bar Saturday August 1, 2015.

Wine-Time on the beach!  You don't even have to leave the beach after spending all day sunning yourself.  My kind of wine festival!

Wine-time begins at 4:30pm and runs until 8pm.  Taste award winning wines from renowned wine brands like Masi wines from Italy, Cloudy Bay from New Zealand, Jordan Winery in Sonoma, the famous Chateau Montelena.  There will be 30+ wineries to sample from. At 5:30pm I will be giving a short seminar to learn how to taste wines like a pro.

Admission to the festival is $50 and includes wine tasting on the beautiful white sands of Diamond Beach, a keepsake glass plus two food tickets for small bites and listen to music by Next.  You can also purchase an additional VIP Grazing Station Access for $20 or a small cheese plate for $10.  Both add-ons need to be pre-purchased before the festival. 

Tickets for the festival can be purchased at http://snip.ly/MKom   Use code WINEGODDESS5 for $5 off ticket price.

Here are some tasting tips to maximize your wine tasting experience:

• Make sure you eat a good lunch.  There are many wines to try and the munchies provided are intended to help you try the wine with food and clear your palate
• Drink water!  You will be in the sun.  Remember you are on the beach. So not only will the wine dehydrate you, but so will the sun.  Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!!
• Be courteous to others who wish to taste.
• After receiving your pour, please step back from the tasting table to do your personal evaluation.  This allows others to step forward to receive their sample
• Step to the side if you wish to speak with the winery representative.

Taking One From Gus's Playbook

You are probably wondering who Gus is.  Gus is Paul's cousin and he is living down here in Cape May and is the Chef at Marie Nicole's in Wildwood Crest. (A great Chef too! Order the specials as they are his creations)

In the Spring we ate at Marie Nicole's and Paul had Striped Bass that was on a bed of thin cut sweet potatoes with Tasso and cooked in foil. There might of been some veggies in there too.  Paul didn't let me take a picture of it. Sometimes he gets annoyed with my picture taking and social media, but he really enjoyed the fish cooked this way.

The other day I came home with Flounder and Paul asked me how I was going to cook it.  I thought about sauteing it with Panko in lemon, butter and wine.  Kind of like my mom use to make (minus the wine). He didn't like that idea to much and had a different idea of what his dinner was going to be that night and it involved foil and the grill.

I relinquished my cooking duty for the evening and handed it off to him.  He took it right from Gus's playbook, but using ingredients that we had in our fridge: Flounder, Summer Squash, Chorizo, Vidalia Onion, White Wine, Olive Oil, Lemon and Parsley.

This dinner was very easy to prepare as I was supervising from the couch with my glass of wine.  The outcome - Delish!

Recipe for Paul's Flounder in Foil for Two

3/4 lb Fresh Flounder
1 Summer Squash (yellow) sliced very thin
1 Vidalia Onion sliced thin
1 Lemon sliced thin
1/4 cup chopped Parsley
2 links of Chorizo
Olive Oil
Splash of Chenin Blanc
Black Pepper

Grill the Chorizo until just about done. Slice it thin. Slice the Summer Squash and Vidalia Onion very thin and toss with some Olive Oil.

Cut two pieces of heavy duty foil, enough to wrap and seal the fish in.  Turn up the edges to create a pan on each. Lay two rows of thinly sliced Summer Squash on the foil.  Top with a piece of Flounder, onion, lemon slices, and Choirzo. Splash some Chenin Blanc on it along with the parsley and black pepper. Seal and throw on grill for 8 minutes.  Take off grill and let sit for 2 minutes.  Open and enjoy with a glass of Chenin Blanc

We cooked with and paired the fish with 2014 Chappellet Signature Chenin Blanc. The wine was nice and fresh with white flowers, hints of orange and lemongrass.  A perfect pairing.