The 15th Annual Beaufort Wine and Food Festival may have been nearly two months ago, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start planning for the next one. And why not? The festival organizers play host to a number of events to spread cheer through fun and feasting, and they even donated $100 grand to the Carteret Community College so the institution could focus on building a brand new culinary arts building.
Another $50 grand went to the Salvation Army in Morehead City.
These charitable donations say a lot about what the Beaufort Wine and Food Festival stands for: goodwill. And food, of course, which is why most of us attend. Helping others is fantastic, but we like to eat.
If that weren’t enough, the festival is responsible for keeping restaurants and hotels full and reinvigorating the local economy around the same time every year. It’s a boon to local business owners to know they can look forward to an infusion of cash like clockwork.
The festival unofficially kicks off at the Beau Coast Clubhouse, where guests can spend a small fortune for tickets to a dinner, including delicious cocktails and hor d’oeuvres. Those who are on a budget, but still don’t mind spending some money, will enjoy attending the artist reception and wine seminar, where you’ll usually find more hor d’oeuvres paired with exactly the right kind of wine. There are dozens of other events from which to choose.
Charitable chefs from all over North Carolina travel to Beaufort for the week to cook alongside the greatest local talent. It doesn’t hurt that business owners from wineries all over the state will be standing by to provide only the best paired wine for each dish.
But there’s always more, and that’s the point. The same organization maintains several other festivals throughout the year, including the 4th Annual Beaufort’s Brewin’ Craft Beer Festival. The fun never ends when you’re in North Carolina, and Beaufort is the perfect place to experience it.
There’s plenty of other activities for the whole family after you’ve visited the festival. You can head to the North Carolina Maritime Museum to explore exhibits about pirate history, boating, and marine life. You can go camping or kayaking at Shackleford Banks, or simply walk the beaches to look at the historical lighthouses along the coast. You can gallivant through the Old Burying Ground, a quaint cemetery from the early 1700s where you’ll find the graves of soldiers who died in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Or you can examine the local wildlife at Rachel Carson Reserve.
There’s so much to do in the neighborhood. The Beaufort Wine and Food Festival is only the beginning.
