Pop the cork on foodie fun in Myrtle Beach this weekend

Vino lovers have a lot to love in the Grand Strand right now.

Between festivals, tasting rooms, vineyards and bars, wine has experienced a burst in popularity recently in the Myrtle Beach area.

While hot spots like Boom Boom Wine Room and Coastal Wine Boutique offer relaxing havens for tasting fine wines from around the world, wine aficionados can also take pleasure from a variety of locally made vino thanks to area wineries La Belle Amie Vineyard, Hyman Vineyards and Carolina Vineyards Winery.

Even Duplin Winery, based in Rose Hill, N.C., is getting in on the action. They recently expanded from their home base and opened a 15,000-square-foot wine tasting room and retail store next to Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach. Along with wine tastings, guests to the facility can watch the bottling process and peruse the gift shop filled with an assortment of wines by the bottle, specialty foods and merchandise.

If you’re not sipping away at a vineyard or wine bar, you can also taste, swish and gurgle your way through a festival or two. Usually accompanied by live music and gourmet food offerings, wine festivals have become another steadfast way of exploring the variety of grapes and wine styles available on the market.

If you’re curious about local wines, La Belle Amie Vineyards often hosts festivals on Saturdays at their vineyard in Little River, or if you want to taste your way around the world, the sixth Annual Myrtle Beach Wine Fest will once again take over Valor Park at The Market Common in October.

But if you’re a wine lover and a foodie, look no further than the Coastal Uncorked Food, Wine & Spirits Festival, which begins tomorrow at Celebrity Square at Broadway at the Beach. This festival marries wine, food and spirits in a three-day gourmet event that highlights Myrtle Beach’s diverse culinary scene.

When the event kicks off tomorrow, it will mark the fifth year for this food, wine and spirit festival, which has evolved and grown since its inception in 2009.

In 2012, the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association acquired Coastal Uncorked, evolving it into the event locals and tourists alike are familiar with today. The event’s focus is to raise funds and awareness for culinary tourism in the Grand Strand and the Culinary Arts Technology program at Horry-Georgetown Technical College. Each year the festival has grown and undergone changes, and this year is no different.

While downtown Myrtle Beach offered a beautiful setting for the festival, Stephen Greene, president and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association, says it also often presented issues with parking, accessibility and attendance. Once the Carolina Country Music Fest set its date for the first weekend in June, the same weekend Coastal Uncorked was initially planned to be held, the decision to move the event was evident.

“With the new country music festival coming in to the same location we were, it was more feasible for us to look at another venue than it was to stay there with our event,” Greene says.

Labor Day weekend was then selected as the new date, with festivities taking place at Celebrity Square at Broadway at the Beach instead of downtown Myrtle Beach.

Greene is hoping the date and location change become a permanent home for the event.

“Celebrity Square allows us to have a lot more guests come to the festival, easier for parking and for us to accommodate walk-ups to the event,” he says.

The three-day festival will be held within Celebrity Square’s center court, under a giant 30-by-165-foot tent. Along with perusing the tasting stations, attendees will also be able to relax at tables set up in the open courtyard just outside the tent and listen to live music. Two walkways will bank each side of the tent, allowing Broadway at the Beach revelers to pass through Celebrity Square and access the restaurants or join the festivities.

Greene, along with Meredith Millen, the membership programs and events manager for the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association, plan and prepare for the event throughout the year, along with several other events.

“It’s a lot of planning, a lot of organizing with volunteers, we have a lot of people in the industry who donate their time, effort and money in making this happen,” Greene says.

The Coastal Uncorked Food, Wine & Spirits Festival is just one of the events the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association hosts each year. They utilize the name Coastal Uncorked as their signature event brand name year round for fundraising efforts, with events including the Trio Dinner and Farm to Table Dinner.

“Coastal Uncorked is helping us to build awareness and funds to keep the youngest and brightest here in the marketplace, and in turn we’re hoping to continue to boost and create more culinary tourism,” Greene says.

In 2016, Greene says they hope to explore the option of creating another Coastal Uncorked event centered on the taste trolley, a once-popular aspect of the food and wine festival when it was held in downtown Myrtle Beach.

While planning for this year’s festival faced some challenges, its potential for success is high and tickets sales have been steady.

Tickets for each event are $20 per person and will be available at the door and online through Sept. 3. A three-day pass for $50 per person is also available but only online, prior to the event.

“We feel the ticket prices are very affordable,” Greene says. “That includes your tastings and your tasting glasses.”

The festival runs Friday through Sunday and will feature a different tasting event each day.

New to Coastal Uncorked this year is Chocolate Under the Moon, a moonshine mixology competition and chocolate dessert event, which kicks off the festival tomorrow. Saturday will feature a craft beer festival and tasting, while Sunday is the popular annual wine tasting event.

Friday: Chocolate Under the Moon - A Moonshine Mixology and Dessert Event

The popularity of past mixology competitions and the continued request for a dessert event by festivalgoers is what lead to the evolution of Chocolate Under the Moon.

“Moonshine is huge right now,” Greene says. “We thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have a moonshine mixology event?”

Coastal Uncorked has teamed up with Sugarlands Distilling Company from Gatlinburg, Tenn., who will provide several distinct flavors of moonshine for the event including Silver Cloud, Jim Tom Hedrick’s Unaged Rye, Blockaders Blackberry, Butterscotch Gold, Appalachian Apple Pie, Old Fashioned Lemonade, and Southern Sweet Tea.

The moonshine mixology competition will feature up to 15 local bartenders and mixologists competing for top prize. Competitors will have tasting stations featuring their concoction made from one of the aforementioned moonshine flavors. Attendees will be able to taste around 2 ounces of each competitor’s concoction and will be given a score card to judge which drink creation is the best.

“Guests will be able to sample all the different decadent chocolate desserts, and then they can go to the different tables to sample and judge all the mixologists’ creations,” he explains.

To complement the moonshine, desserts for the evening will be created by Jamie Saunders, chef and co-owner of Johnny D’s Waffles & Bakery in Myrtle Beach.

Saunders says she plans to create four stations where guests can indulge in a selection of decadent desserts, with some made-to-order offerings and others infused with different flavors of moonshine to complement the drinks.

One station Saunders will feature is a waffle bar. Guests can order select flavors of waffles, like red velvet, and choose from a variety of toppings including moonshine glazed pecans, vanilla sauce, strawberry compote, cream cheese, fresh fruit and more.

“Guests can open their hearts and put whatever they want on the waffles,” Saunders explains.

Other desserts will include a pecan pie flambé served over a warm biscuit with chocolate chips, a banana fosters flambé served over pound cake, an apple pie crisp flambé, five different flavors of mini cupcakes, chocolate mousse cups, éclairs, and a maple peach bread pudding topped with peach caramel sauce.

Saunders says the flambé stations will add an element of fun to the event, watching the moonshine flame up when the desserts are ordered, and plans to use four of the moonshine flavors throughout her dessert menu.

“I’m really excited, and I think this event is a great addition to Coastal Uncorked,” says Saunders.

The Saltines will provide live music during the event, which runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday.

Saturday: Brews ‘N the Beach - A Craft Beer Festival

In its second year, this craft beer festival will feature more than 50 different craft beers from 14 distributors to sample. The Sick Stooges will provide live music during the event, which will run from 4 to 8 p.m.

Guests will receive a tasting glass and card listing all the distributors and the brews they are showcasing at their tasting stations. They then can peruse the different stations, sampling around a 2-ounce pour of each craft beer and speaking with representatives from the distributors.

Along with local brewers New South Brewery and Liberty Brewery, guests will also be able to taste brews from Terrapin Beer Company, Palmetto Brewing, Angry Orchard, Brooklyn Brewery, Boulevard Brewing Company, Thomas Creek Brewery, Samuel Adams and more.

While food is not included in the ticket price of this event, a few food vendors including Croissant’s Bistro & Bakery, Amici’s Brick Oven & Italian Bistro, and Jersey Dogs Vending will be at the festival, offering items for $5 and under. Water stations will also be available for cleansing palettes and rinsing tasting glasses.

“Last year, we had everyone from 70-year-olds who brought their grandkids and were hanging out listening to music and drinking beer, all the way down to the millennials, who were very craft-minded,” Greene says.

Sunday: Grand Wine Tasting Tent

The final and most popular event of the festival, the Grand Wine Tasting, will feature more than 50 different wines for attendees to explore and taste.

The event will work in a similar fashion as the craft beer tasting event, where guests will receive a tasting wine glass and card listing the various distributors and their selections of wines available at the event.

Guests will be able to peruse the various tasting stations, sipping a 2-ounce sample of the various wines that interest them.

Duplin Winery will be making their its appearance at the festival this year. They will feature a few selections of their Muscadine wines for attendees to taste, including Sangria White and Sangria Red, their two newest wines introduced to the market earlier this year.

“We wanted to get involved and give back to the community,” says Morgan Jackson, general manager of Duplin Winery. “This is a growing event that has benefited the community and all the industries involved in it, and we wanted to be a part of that.”

Along with wine selections from Duplin Winery, guests will be able to sip and savor selections from Rodney Strong Vineyards, Accolade Wines, OneHope Wine, Pernod Ricard Winemakers, Aveniu Brands and more.

Grand Strand Provisions, a distributor of Boar’s Head Premium Deli Meats and Cheeses, will be providing a selection of hors-d’oeuvres for the event, which is included in the ticket price. Their menu will pair with the various unique wines being offered and feature pulled pork sliders, a charcuterie plate of fine dry cured meats and gourmet cheeses, and a selection of items made with Boar’s Head new Smokemaster Black Forest Ham.

“It is unique because we use imported beechwood chips from Germany to smoke this ham,” says Greg DiSabato, a Delicatessen Consultant with Grand Strand Provisions. “We’re excited to show the versatility of this product.”

The event will run from 1 to 6 p.m. with the Paul Grimshaw Band providing the entertainment.

For more information or to purchase tickets to Coastal Uncorked Food, Wine & Spirits Festival, call 843-626-9668 or visit www.mbhospitality.org.

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 1:18 AM with the headline "Pop the cork on foodie fun in Myrtle Beach this weekend."