Soup and Wine Festival

[Innkeeper]

Well, we did get to the Mushroom Soup & Wine Festival in Kennett Square on Sunday, September 9. We had a wonderful time, and a great day; albeit just two days before a horrible day. We will definitely to go back again, but hope to shorten the learning curve for some of you planning for next year or beyond.

When we got there we found blocks and blocks of vendors (mostly decent) and many other events of the main Mushroom Festival going on. Our event was divided into two tents, one for soup and another for wine. You bought tickets at the gate or picked up advanced sale ones. The tickets ($1 each) got you a soup or wine tasting, or with three or more, a full glass of wine. The reason for the two tents was to separate underage soups tasters from the wine. Wine tasters got a special band around their wrists. We opted to go to the soup tent first, and then the wine tasting. This was a mistake. The smart thing to do would be to go to the wine tasting first and taste three or four wines that might go with the soup. Then go to the soup tent, and pick up three or four soups that looked to your liking by ingredients, look, or smell. Take these back to the wine tent, by a glass of the wine you liked best, then sit down at an available table and taste soup, washed down with the wine.

The soups were wonderful. Most of the participating restaurants gave you a half to three quarter cup taste and would willing give you a second spoon for your partner. The Kennett Square Inn that Mike Dutton recommended was not in evidence. We liked best the soups from Hugo's Inn and the Mendenhall Inn, two diametrically different places. The soup from the dinning facility at Longwood Gardens was also excellent. Hugo's is just outside the gate from Longwood, and does not look like much. We had been there before, and all four of us agreed their soup is still out of this world. I split my ticket and voted for both Hugo's and Mendenhall, but the other three voted exclusively for Hugo's.

The most impressive winery at the wine tasting was, as you might have guessed, was Chaddsford Winery from right around the corner. Their wines were clearly superior to all the others. Their '98 Merican, a Meritage type blend, was the hit of the show. It was selling at the show for $24.50, but normally ran in the mid thirties. At either price it was competitive with Californian Meritages at two or three times the price. Their Pinot Grigio was also competitive with the best from Italy. At $17.00 the price was right in line with those. All Chaddsford's wines were roughly double those from all the other Pennsylvania Wineries.

Other that we liked were Blue Mountain Vineyards (cab, chambourcin, riesling), Presque Island Wine Cellars (pinot and cab), Mantawney Creek (almost all their stuff). We brought back Mantawney Creek Dolcetto and Pinot Grigio. We plan to visit them next summer, and Presque Island on our next trip west. They are in the Lake Erie AVA that includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Hope to see more of you there next year.