Cannon Beach Wine & Culinary Festival to showcase Northwest wines & regional cuisine | Tri-City Herald

CANNON BEACH, OR - Four days of wine tastings, culinary and arts events and a wine walk featuring dozens of Northwest wineries are planned for the Savor Cannon Beach Wine and Culinary Festival, March 7-10 in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Savor Cannon Beach is a community-wide festival featuring food, wine and arts events all around town including six wine tasting events showcasing Northwest wines and focusing on specific themes over the four days of the festival.

The event kicks off with the Thursday Night Throw-down, where festival participants taste 12 select wines (two of each varietal) and vote on their favorites to crown the winner of the one-on-one matchups and select a top red and a top white wine.

Small bites for the event will be provided by Cannon Beach’s James Beard award-winning chef, John Newman, owner of Newmans at 988 and Fishes restaurant.

Participants also vote to select the winner at Friday’s Battle of the Blends event, a wine tasting featuring four red and four white wine blends from the Northwest. Saturday of the festival is the Savor Cannon Beach Wine Walk featuring approximately 40 Northwest wineries pouring tastings at Cannon Beach art galleries, restaurants and retail shops, all within easy walking distance in this compact beach community.

A program titled “What’s That Varietal?” is a blind tasting of Northwest wines led by Wine Press Northwest magazine founder Andy Perdue who will challenge and teach participants to identify the characteristics of wine varietals.

Other tasting events include a seminar on pairing food and wine and a sparkling wine and brunch bite tasting.

Cannon Beach restaurants host special wine dinners and pairing menus throughout the festival and many restaurants and businesses participate in a Tasting Tour featuring free or low cost tastings ranging from chocolates to olive oils and specialty salts. Local shops and galleries also host their own events over the course of the weekend.

At the start of the festival, the winners of the SavorNW Wine Awards will be announced. This professional judging of Northwest wines is one of the largest wine award programs showcasing Northwest wines and is conducted in Cannon Beach just prior to the festival.

Festival events are intimate and limited in size with only about 100 tickets available for tasting events and 500 tickets for the Saturday wine walk. Festival Passes good for all six festival wine tasting events including the Saturday Wine Walk are $119. Individual tickets for just the Wine Walk are $30. A limited number of tickets for individual festival wine tasting events will be available at the door of each event for $30 each. For more information, or to purchase advance tickets, visit SavorCannonBeach.com.