More than 400 wines available at at Jungle Jim's International Wine Festival


How to go

What: International Wine Festival

Where: Oscar Event Center at Jungle Jim’s, 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield

When: VIP Dinner 6:30 p.m. Nov. 16; Grand Tastings 7 to 10 p.m. Nov. 18

Cost: VIP Dinner- $150, $75 for non-drinker ticket; Grand Tastings: $55 in advance, $60 at door, $25 for non-drinker ticket Nov. 18; $60 in advance, $65 day of, $25 non-drinker Nov. 19

How: In store or visit www.JungleJims.com to purchase tickets

For more information, contact Jungle Jim’s at 513-674-6000.

FAIRFIELD — More than 400 different wines from local wineries and from around the world will be available for sampling at the International Wine Festival at Jungle Jim’s.

“If you’re not into wines, since this is a wine tasting event, it’s probably not up your alley,” said Ed Vinson, Jungle Jim’s beer and wine operations manager. “If you would like to learn more about wines, in almost all cases, there is someone at the tables to explain the wines and tell you about it. There’s a lot of people to help educate you.”

The festival kicks off Nov. 16 with a VIP Dinner. At $150 per ticket, the VIP dinner includes appetizers and dinner, which will be paired with wines, and tickets to the Grand Tastings on Friday and Saturday.

At Friday and Saturday’s Grand Tastings, over 100 vendors will sample over 400 wines, Vinson said. The vendors inside the Oscar Event Center will be organized by region, where one aisle will have Australian wines, another will have Italian, and another will have California wines, and so on, he said.

“When you’re tasting wines, you’re tasting from the same region so you have a better idea of what different regions have to offer,” Vinson said.

Appetizers are included in the ticket price, but Vinson said attendees should eat dinner before coming. Food will not be available for purchase. The monorail will be open Friday and Saturday.

The event, in its fourth year, is expected to draw a crowd of at least 1,000 people, he said. While Jungle Jim’s offers wine tastings every week, he said they were motivated to do it “on a grander scale. We decided the festival was something we could do.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 483-5237 or Kelsey.Cano@coxinc.com.

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