Loire Fest 2016 at Sonoma Houston

So I’d been hearing all about #LoireFest2016 and had been trying to make one of the numerous events being held all around town. Loire Fest is a month long celebration during the month of July where a handful of Houston wine bars and restaurants highlight various Loire Valley wines. I was so interested as the Loire Valley is not a region that I know a great deal about and I definitely want to learn more. I knew enough about Vouvray, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume and Chinon to be dangerous but knew I’d only scratched the surface.

Every time there was an event I wanted to attend, I had Thing 1 and Thing 2 and that just won’t work in a wine bar. But then my friends at Sonoma Wine Bar & Restaurant started advertising their CHILDREN’S menu and I saw my opportunity. I’d previously written about the folks at Sonoma Wine Bar here. So off we went with Thing 1 and Thing 2 in tow along with our iPads.

They had two different flights that would fit the bill, a Chenin Blanc flight as well as a Loire Fest 2016 flight.

I went with the Loire Fest flight as it had both red and white wines.

The first two were Chenin Blancs, the 3rd was a Grolleau, and the last one was Cabernet Franc. Surprise of surprises, I enjoyed the white wines much more than the reds. We sat outside on the rooftop patio (I do know my kids’ limitations) and the white wines were just so refreshing.

And I have to say I was not a fan of the Grolleau. This was a new grape for me and for lack of a better adjective, I found it to be a bit “funky.”

For food, we started with some fantastic zucchini chips. Salty goodness for sure. Thing 1 who swears that zucchini is the worst thing ever (The Husband has made similar claims) just chowed down on.

We also had the crab cake which was served with a champagne lemon butter sauce.

The cheeseburger sliders, which had some sort of caramelized onion aioli, were fantastic.

And because there were children involved, we had to have pizza.

And because they are kids, they couldn’t agree on one thing so we also had to have grilled cheese (no photo as Thing 2 wasn’t going for it) which came with its very own car shaped sandwich cutter. Thing 2 held out as long as possible “driving” his car before finally devouring the cheesy goodness.

It was a great outing and it’s nice to have this option when I have Things 1 and 2. Crossing my fingers that I can make one more tasting before Loire Fest wraps up.