We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: baby boomer travelers love wine tasting.

In fact, according to the American Association of Wineries, an estimated 27 million winery visits currently take place annually, and the US Wine Market Council states that Americans consumed a per capita 3.04 gallons of wine in 2010.

That’s a lot of vino!

The Napa Valley stretches approximately 35 miles (56 km) in a northwesterly direction; its width varies from approximately 5 miles (8 km) wide at its widest point near the City of Napa in the south to approximately one mile wide near the northern-most town of Calistoga.

There are five unique tourism regions within the County that contribute to the total experience that makes The Napa Valley the premier wine, food, arts, and wellness destination.  As if clustered along a grapevine, from north to south, Calistoga, St. Helena, Rutherford, Oakville, Yountville, the city of Napa, Lake Berryessa, and American Canyon each have their own personalities and miles of nature preserves that invite exploration and enjoyment.

Fun Facts From Napa Valley Vintners

• One barrel of wine equals roughly 20 cases, which equals 1200 glasses.
• A ton of grapes makes about 720 bottles of wine, or 60 cases.
• One vine annually produces between four and six bottles of wine, or between 20 and 30 glasses.
• Each bottle of wine contains about 2.8 pounds of grapes; therefore each 5-ounce glass of wine contains a little over half a pound of grapes.
• There are between 15 and 45 clusters of grapes per vine.
• One acre of land is home to between 900 and 1,300 vines.

Establishing the first local homestead in what is now Yountville in 1836, George Calvert Yount was the first to plant vineyards in the valley. The valley has weathered some difficult times in its relatively short history.   The Valley’s once-famed Silverado Mine was exhausted in 1875 after just three years of operation. In 1893 an outbreak of phylloxera, a serious grapevine disease, crippled many of the Valley’s 140 wineries.  And,  prohibition, enacted in 1920, dealt the final blow to the early wine industry. Today, however, there are more than 400 wineries, 95% of them family-owned, producing some of the world’s finest wines.

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Napa Valley Wine Tasting Tips

• Because of the region’s fairly large geographical area which boasts more than 400 wineries, it is best to sample Napa Valley in small pieces and save some of the area for another visit.
• Plan to spend a minimum of 90-minutes exploring each winery.
• With the distances to be driven between wineries, and the likelihood that alcohol will be consumed, we strongly recommend that you consider visiting no more than 3-5 wineries each day.
• Rather than driving yourself, we strongly recommend the services of a local wine tour company.  This way, you won’t find yourself pulled over by one of Napa Valley’s finest asking you to blow into a breathalyzer.
• Not all of Napa Valley’s 400 wineries are open for tasting.  Here is a printable map to help you find which wineries offer open tasting, and which wineries require an appointment for tasting.
• Some wineries offer open tours, some offer tours by-appointment.
• You should expect to pay a fee for wine tasting, however, some will offer complimentary tasting with a purchase of wine.
• Barrel tasting is becoming popular.  Here are Napa Valley wineries that offer barrel tasting.

For this trip to Napa Valley, we confined ourselves to the lower half of the valley.  Here are the wineries we sampled and enjoyed during our two days of Napa Valley Wine Tasting:

Silver Oak Cellars

Long a favorite of The Roaming Boomers®, Silver Oak Cellars has been producing fantastic Napa Valley and Alexander Valley Cabernets for over 40  years.  One of the reasons for their stellar reputation is that they age their wines longer than most and only use American Oak barrels.

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Quintessa Winery

Biodynamic farming and gravity-fed harvesting, rather than crushing, make for a unique method of wine-making.  Quintessa Winery is one of our perennial favorites and is always on our list of winery visits.

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Artesa Winery

Owned by the Raventos family of Spain, whose winemaking history dates to the mid-sixteenth century, the winery takes its name from the Catalan word for “handcrafted.” Today, Artesa Winery focuses on producing small, ultra-premium lots of the varietals for which the Carneros and the Napa Valley are best known –  Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Andretti Winery

Founded in 1996 by Mario Andretti and his longtime friend, Joe Antonini, former Chairman & CEO of Kmart Coporation, Andretti Winery is dedicated to celebrating the Italian lifestyle, complete with the finest wines produced anywhere in the world.

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Black Stallion Winery

Located on the grounds of a historic equestrian center, Black Stallion Winery is the latest addition to the distinguished collection of wineries in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley. We had our very first barrel tasting here. Big fun!

Note:  if you can’t see the video, click here.

Domaine Chandon

In 1973, Domaine Chandon became the first French-owned sparkling wine venture in the United States. But Chandon’s beginnings date back to 1690 with the father of champagne. A Benedictine monk and cellar-master at the Abbey of Hautvillers, named Dom Pérignon, set out to unlock the secret of sparkling wine and ultimately developed the traditional champagne method.

Our schedule didn’t allow us time to shoot a video at Domaine Chandon, but we loved our visit nonetheless. Here’s a beautiful photograph I captured of the three sparkling wines we sampled. YUM!

Napa Valley Wine Tasting Tours

You should know that driving in Napa Valley can sometimes be an exasperating experience.  If you look at a Napa Valley road map, it resembles a ladder.  There are essentially two roads traversing Napa Valley (north and south) with short diagonal roads occurring as you step up or down the valley.

With thousands of folks visiting Napa Valley every day, this can create a slow moving string of traffic on the roads.  This is particularly true when the tasting rooms start to close down for the day.  We have seen strings of slow moving cars backed up for miles.You can avoid all of this by starting early and ending your wine-tasting day in the middle of the afternoon.

However, another option is to let someone else do the driving, and consider the use of a wine-tasting tour company.

For our Napa Valley wine tasting experience, we were chauffeured in a shiny black town car.  No worries about locations, traffic, or drinking and driving.  We used Pure Luxury Wine Tours and were very happy.

Napa Valley wine tasting tours come in all shapes and sizes.  You can ride along on a bus following a regular schedule, you can hire a private driver driving an expensive vintage convertible, you can hire a private town car like we did, you can hire a stretch-limo, or I bet you could even do it on bicycle-built-for-two.

Let your imagination go wild, and find a wonderfully unique experience.

Napa Valley Wine Tasting Without the Drive

If you would like to sample Napa Valley wines with out a drive, you can do that too.  Here are a few places we found where you can sample a variety of Napa Valley wines in one place:

• Backroom Wines - ”Off-the-Grid” Tasting Menu changes extremely often, but it always features local, hard-to-access artisan wineries.  Currently offering tasting-flights for $10.  Cheese plates and other yummy snacks are also available to enjoy during your visit!
• Bounty Hunter Wine Bar & Smokin’ BBQ – 40 available wines by the glass (2 oz pours available),  large variety of wine flights, and over 400 highly allocated wines on the shelves.  Voted the #1 Wine Bar in the Bay Area.
• The Tasting Room at Napa Wine Company – Sample over 20 alternating wineries in one spot. Described as a launching pad for some of Napa’s most notable cult wines and celebrity winemakers.
• Vintner’s Collective – A multi-winery tasting room that is home to twenty of the most experienced and talented winemakers in the Valley.

Shipping Guide for Your Napa Valley Wine

It is important to understand that you can not bring any of your precious Napa Valley wine with you on the plane.  Carry-on is not allowed.

You can, if you have just a bottle or two, packed your wine in your checked luggage.  If you do this, consider sticking your wine in a sock and then roll it up in a few shirts to protect it during transit.  However, in our humble opinion, shipping is a far safer and more palatable option.

Unfortunately, shipping wine is a bit of a convoluted mess!  It seems that each state has its own rules regarding the shipment of wine, and you will certainly want to be aware of your state’s particular guidelines.  For example, eleven states completely prohibit the shipment of wine, and the rest have limited rules regarding shipment.

A website called Free the Grapes will help you determine your state’s particular guidelines.

You will also find that some wineries, because of required permits, may not ship to your state regardless of your state’s procedures.  If that’s the case, inquire about wine shipping companies who will ship the wine for you.

Well, that’s our Napa Valley Wine Tasting Guide.  There’s a lot of information here to assist you in having a most delightful visit.  We are certain to be back in Napa Valley in the near future where we will once again explore a piece of the valley, and you can count on us to share the experience with you when we do.

Now, I’m off to write our piece on where to stay and where to eat in Napa Valley.  Enjoy!

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We just experienced our very first hot air balloon ride, and it was definitely one of those life-time memory experiences!

We chose Hot Air Expeditions because of their perennial award-winning status, their colorful balloons with a mammoth saguaro cactus on the side, and a champagne gourmet desert picnic at the conclusion of the adventure.

Make sure you read this post all the way to the bottom, we have a very big surprise for you!

We left the Deer Valley Airport at 3:30 in a large passenger van that doubled as one of the chase crew’s vehicles.  After a 20-minute ride, we arrived to our launch point in a desert clearing where there was plenty of smooth sand to get our balloon filled with hot air.

In roughly 15-minutes, the crew had the balloon upright, nine of us climbed aboard,  and we were off to float in the the dead quiet of the Sonoran desert breezes.

Take a peek at the video from our hot air balloon adventure:

Note: click here if you can’t see the video.

Floating aloft in our first hot air balloon left us with several impressions:

1. It is quite a remarkable thing to be floating with the breeze.  Because of this, if everyone were to be quiet in the balloon, there would be a complete and utter stillness as you move with the wind.  It’s really quite peaceful.
2. Looking out at the beauty of creation, with the approaching sunset painting the Sonoran desert and the distant mountain peaks with its beautiful orange hues, will take your breath away.
3. There was a certain, fun sense of adventure as we floated above the earth somewhere around 1,000 feet.
4. It’s definitely an experience we will want to have again.

Win Two Free Tickets for a Hot Air Balloon Ride in Phoenix!

We had such a great experience with Hot Air Expeditions that we’d like to extend the opportunity for you!

We are giving away a hot air ballon ride for two with Hot Air Expeditions.

The contest is open to anyone, however, the company is based in Phoenix. Therefore, you should live where it would be possible for you to take advantage of this experience, or perhaps plan to come to the Scottsdale/Phoenix area in the near future.

Here’s how to enter your name in the drawing:

• Tell us in the comments section below what you love most about traveling!

That’s it! Once you make your comment below, we will automatically enter your name in the drawing for the two free hot air balloon ride tickets.

Be certain to do this right away as the comment period will end at 5:00 MST on December 9th, 2011, and the winning tickets will be drawn.

If you enjoyed this article, please follow us at our website, our Facebook page, and on Twitter.

Disclosure: our hot air balloon experience, and the free tickets for the drawing were provided by the kind folks at Hot Air Expeditions. Thank you! 

You haven’t lived until you’ve stood upon glacial ice that is thicker than the Empire State Building is tall, and furthermore, ice that was perhaps around when Moses was just a young’un.

During our summer road-trip in the Canadian Rockies, we pulled off the Icefields Parkway to experience standing upon the Athabasca Glacier in Canada’s famous Columbia Icefields.

Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Icefields, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

The Columbia Icefield is a powerful, dynamic force, shaping the regional landscape and climate. Its glaciers endlessly advance and retreat in an ancient elemental dance, in a place where time is measured in millennia.

The Columbia Icefield is located in Jasper National Park. The Icefield – the largest sub-polar body of ice in North America – is one of the reasons why the United Nations declared Canada’s four Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Sites. The Icefield covers 325 square kilometres with solid ice up to 365 metres (1200 feet) deep. Meltwater from the Icefield flows to three oceans: the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic via Hudson Bay. (via Brewster Canada)

We stood in the Icefield high upon the Athabasca Glacier.  And, to make our adventure even more exciting, we were brought to our perch aboard a 42 ft Terra Bus which was specially designed to inch its way down the very steep sides of the mountain and out onto the ice.

We began our 80-minute journey aboard a common passenger bus at the Columbia Icefield Glacier Adventure Center.  Soon, the road ended and it was no longer possible to transport our group with a bus.  Therefore, at another staging area high up the side of the mountain, we all climbed aboard our Terra Bus.

Little did we know that this monster of a craft would soon be inching us down the very, very steep sides of the mountain.  There were screams of terror from many in our vehicle as we started down the 32% 18-degree grade.  Just for a reference, the steepest grades allowed on our mountain interstate freeways is a mere 6-degree grade.  We were three times that!  Yowza!

There were screams of terror from many in our vehicle as we started down the 32% 18-degree grade.

After our driver let just the right amount of time for us to soak in our fears, he assured us that our vehicle was designed for such travel and that its lowest gear crawled nearly as slow as a snail with the transmission doing all the work and not the vehicles braking systems.

That information calmed the fears and we all sat back to enjoy astoundingly beautiful views as we crawled our way out onto the ice.

After a few minutes of ice travel, we reached a clearing in the ice where we were told that we would have 45 minutes to go out and explore the glacial ice.  We were warned to keep within marked boundaries, so as not to fall into ice fissures, and were actually encouraged to drink some of the glacial water that was flowing in small streams all around us.

As we stepped out onto the ice, there was a certain sense of awe present as we realized we were about to explore something that has been present, growing and shrinking with various climate changes, for millennia.

Our journey walking upon the Athabasca Glacier was easily one of our great lifetime travel memories and an experience that we would very highly recommend.

If you enjoyed this article, please follow us at our website, our Facebook page, and on Twitter.

Disclosure:  our Columbia Icefield Glacier Experience was provided by the kind folks at Brewster Travel Canada.  Thanks!  It was a blast!

Santa Barbara, California has easily won its way into our hearts as one of our favorite destinations.  We recently returned from our second visit and thought an update to our Santa Barbara Top Ten List was in order.

Santa Barbara is located 92 miles north of Los Angeles and 332 miles south of San Francisco.  It is considered the northernmost part of Southern California and the southernmost part of Northern California.

It is also known as “The American Riviera” because of its dramatic mountains, sparkling seas, lush gardens, white-washed buildings, red tile roofs and abundant sunshine found in the Mediterranean Rivieras.

Furthermore, if you are planning a south to north drive of the world-famous central California coastline, then Santa Barbara is a great place to begin your journey.

Our Favorite Places to Stay in Santa Barbara

• San Ysidro Ranch –  check out our feature article from last year’s visit.  Travel + Leisure calls this the #1 resort in North America.
• Simpson House Inn – this was our home away from home in Santa Barbara this year.  This is the only AAA Five-Diamond Bed & Breakfast Inn in North America.

Our Favorite Places to Eat in Santa Barbara

• Downey’s Restaurant – consistently tops with Zagat.  We loved it!
• Bouchon – wondrous “Wine Country Cuisine”.

Top 10 Things to Do in Santa Barbara

Although these are in no particular order, we think that you’ll find some great experiences in our list:

1. Santa Barbara Red Tile Walking Tour - we spent half a day and enjoyed it greatly.
2. Santa Barbara Urban Wine Tour - if you don’t have time to drive out into the wine country, this is a wonderful way to sample some of the local wines.
3. Sideways (The Movie) Wine Tour - this will take a whole day, but the wine country with its accompanying small town are certain to be a delight.
4. Shopping on State Street - it’s lined with shops, cafés, museums, galleries, day spas and theaters.  We spent a whole afternoon strolling these quaint shops.
5. Arroyo Burro Beach Park - The locals call it Hendry’s Beach -a place to meet for breakfast or a cocktail at sunset, stroll or jog the sandy shore, watch for whales, surf fish, or ride the wild surf.
6. Steams Warf - this is Santa Barbara’s most visited landmark.  It is replete with shops, restaurants, and the area is a great place for people watching.
7. Montecito Home Tour - Montecito is the stomping grounds of Hollywood’s A-list.  Driving alongPark Lane and Bella Vista Drive will produce jaw-dropping views of palatial mansions with ocean views from mountain heights.
8. Explore Nearby Cities - Getting out to explore nearby cities is another must if you have time.  We highly recommend Solvang.  This Danish village is packed with quaint shops and on Wednesdays has a farmer’s market to die for.  We also loved Los Olivos.
9. Art & History - There are a great many art and historical spots to explore in Santa Barbara.  This 116-page on-line Santa Barbara Visitor’s Guide will help you choose which are most appealing to you.
10. 101 Free Things to Do – if the preceding 9 things don’t wet your whistle, then here are 101 more things to do.  Perhaps best of all, they’re free!

Well, there you go!

If you spend some time clicking around on these links, you are certain to find just the perfect experience for your visit to the great town of Santa Barbara.

As I mentioned above, we love Santa Barbara, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see us back again real soon.  We’re not done exploring the area ourselves.

Have fun, and please, come back and share your experiences with in the the comments section below.

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Luxury baby boomer travelers love good wine, and Santa Barbara’s Urban Wine Tour provides a bevy of wineries to sample within easy walking distance of the town’s famous State Street shopping district.

Created by a group of like-minded wineries, the Urban Wine Trail offers both novices and aficionados the opportunity to learn about and taste wines of many different varieties and styles crafted from the Counties best vineyards.

To make certain that you are up on the wine-tasting lingo, here’s a few items (via urbanwinetrailsb.com) to memorize.  This way, you can mesmerize your companions with your wine tasting prowess:

Balance—the relationship between the various components of a wine; acid, sweetness, flavor, oak, tannin and alcohol.

Bouquet—the smell that results from the fermentation and aging of a wine.

Dry – term for wine that has no residual sugar. Often misused to describe wines that are not fruity. Most table wines (except for dessert wines) are dry, but many have fruity and/or oaky flavors that can be perceived as sweet.

Finish— the overall taste and feeling that remains in your mouth after you’ve swallowed a wine. Typically described as “long,” “short,” “clean,” etc.

Nose—a term for the aroma and bouquet of a wine. The nose is best evaluated immediately after swirling the wine in your glass.

Tannins—found in grape skins, seeds and stems. They can cause bitterness and astringency; some tannins are desirable in red wines to give them structure.

Tartrates—tartaric acid crystals which sometimes form in wine (often on the cork, or at the bottom of the bottle). They do not affect flavor and are not harmful to drink.

To quote the folks at the Urban Wine Trail, “do your shopping, take your hike, see the sights and work on your tan, but don’t miss the opportunity to sip your way through the wineries of downtown Santa Barbara”.

We couldn’t agree more!

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Es una fiesta de tacos!

Named as one of “The Top 10 Fall Fests to Feast At” by USA Today, these two boomers roamed to the recently held 2nd Annual Arizona Taco Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The event pitted 42 taco teams competing for a prize purse of $7,500.  The teams were comprised of local restaurants, bars, amateur competitors, and even a taco-fanatic from Bend, Oregon.

The Second Annual Arizona Taco Festival

The competing categories were chicken, pork, beef, and fish tacos.  All submitted to a sequestered panel of 50 National Taco Association judges.

There were 10,000 others joining us as we all chowed down over 40,000 tacos in the unusually warm, nearly 100-degree weather.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

In the end, only one team walked away with the title Grand Champion Taco and it was a group who had never cooked together in Arizona – Chef David Conn and his team from the soon-to-open Distrito restaurant in the soon-to-open Saguaro Hotel. Distrito is owned and concepted by Iron Chef winner Chef Jose Garces, who encouraged his team to enjoy their first cookout together at the Taco Festival.

Defending second place for the second year in a row, La Hacienda, under the direction of Chef Forest Hamrick, took home the title of Reserve Grand Champion. La Hacienda at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess Resort is managed by famed Mexican Chef Richard Sandoval.

2011 Arizona Taco Festival Winners

Grand Champion
Distrito ($1,500)

Reserve Grand Champion
La Hacienda ($700)

Chicken Taco
1st: Tacos el Mauri ($500)
2nd: Distrito ($250)
3rd: T. Cook’s ($125)

Pork Taco
1st: Loco Patron ($500)
2nd: Casa Poco (Petite Maison) ($250)
3rd: Spotted Donkey ($125)

Beef Taco
1st: La Hacienda ($500)
2nd: Distrito ($250)
3rd: Cien Agaves ($125)

Seafood Taco
1st: La Hacienda ($500)
2nd: Blanco ($250)
3rd: Macayo’s ($125)

SIDECART CATEGORIES

Salsa
1st: El Palacio Cantina ($250)
2nd: Team Taco Kisses ($150)
3rd: El Hefe ($50)

Guacamole
1st: El Palacio Cantina ($250)
2nd: El Hefe ($150)
3rd: Sandbar Chandler ($50)

Anything Goes Taco
1st: Loot N’ Booty ($250)
2nd: The Herb Box ($150)
3rd: Sandbar Chandler ($50)

Best Booth Design
1st: El Sancho ($250)
2nd: T-Licious ($150)
3rd: Dos Gringos ($50)

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The Roaming Boomers® have absolutely fallen in love with Santa Barbara, California.

Santa Barbara is considered by many to be the American Riviera as it shares the same dramatic mountains, sparkling seas, lush gardens, white-washed buildings, red-tile roofs and abundant sunshine of its French and Italian counterparts.

Santa Barbara is also well-known for its farm-to-table cuisine, boutique wineries, beaches, surf culture, hiking and biking trails, marine life, art galleries, gardens and estates, festivals and luxury resorts.

One of the best ways to explore the city of Santa Barbara is on foot as you follow along the Red Tile Walking Tour.

Encompassing 12 small, easily navigated blocks, the tour includes 17 stops and 22 historic adobes dating from the late 1700s through the 1800s, plus many of the structures built in the Spanish-revival and Moorish styles mandated by community leaders after the devastating earthquake of 1925.

…you will want to allow significantly more time to gawk, shoot photographs, climb the courthouse tower (pictured above), have lunch, taste some wine, visit an art gallery, and make goo-goo eyes with your lover under a shade tree.

Ambling along you will also discover flower-bedecked courtyards, hidden passageways, and notable restaurants, theaters, museums, and architecturally significant government buildings. The terrain is flat, the distances between stops are short, and because everything is either on State Street or just off it, a revivifying snack or an iced mocha is never far away.

The route is easily covered in 60 minutes, but, like us, you will want to allow significantly more time to gawk, shoot photographs, climb the courthouse tower (pictured above), have lunch, taste some wine, visit an art gallery, and make goo-goo eyes with your lover under a shade tree.

Here is a little photographic slide show we whipped up to share our experience with you…

iPic Theater Scottsdale – Have you ever been standing in a roped line at a movie theater, with hundreds of other folks edging to make their way first in the theater, only to find that you’re about to sit scrunched in a relatively small seat for the next 90 minutes with popcorn munching, beer-breathed Bob sitting next to you?

Now, I have nothing against Bob’s love of popcorn.  Neither do I look in scorn at his love of a good pint.  However, do we HAVE to sit rubbing shoulder to shoulder?  Come on!

I’m pleased to announced that this all comes to an end with iPic Theater Scottsdale.

Here, if you like, you can reserve your specific seat online.  No more standing in lines.  No more pushing and shoving to get the best seat.  You have arranged all of that ahead of time!

But, it doesn’t end there!

The seats!  Oh, the seats at iPic Theater Scottsdale!

We just got back from watching a 90-minute movie, fully reclined in the sweetest, most comfortable movie seats ever.  Why, we even had a pillow and blanky for crying out loud!

But wait!  There’s more!

We got to our movie about 30 minutes early, so we enjoyed a glass of chilled champagne in the Salt Ultra Lounge (pictured below).  Also, if you’d like to enjoy a wonderful dinner before your movie, there is also the on-premise Tanzy Restaurant where you can nosh on inventive, contemporary cuisine.

However, we opted for the in-theater dining option (menu link).

Our premium-plus, fully reclining, out-of-this-world comfy seats entitled us to in-theater dining service for the first twenty minutes of the show (mostly while the previews were showing).

We enjoyed Filet Mignon Trio (pictured below), an excellent BBQ Chicken Flatbread, Truffle Fries, complimentary bags of popcorn, and a delightful piece of Peanut Butter Pie.

Wow!

Now, that’s far better than being all scrunched up with some guy named Bob!  Don’t you think?

I suppose that there are naysayers who might balk at the $27/per person price tag for the premium-plus seats (premium seats $18.50 without in-theater dining option), but I figure that a person will actually spend less money for dinner and a movie when you combine them in this way.

Besides, with this option, you can take your shoes off, hit the electric recline button, and relax while you nosh on your dinner and enjoy the movie.

What a sweet thing it was!

We loved it, and recommend that you go experience it for yourself.  We’ll definitely be back!

Disclosure:  our wonderful experience was provided by the kind folks at iPic Theater Scottsdale.  Thanks!  We had a blast!

The event is a benefit for Phoenix Children’s Hospital and provides great fun during the holiday weekend with a full day of delicious food, wine, spirit and beverage samplings, plus interactive cooking classes and gourmet kitchen stage demonstrations by top chefs of Phoenix strutting their creative cooking styles and unique talents.

Here’s a video from our visit:

Next Labor Day, if you find yourself in the Phoenix Valley, put this wonderful event on your calendar.

It was great fun!

This afternoon, hundreds of folks gathered for the 5th Annual El Pedregal Cinco de Mayo Salsa Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Six local restaurants brought out their best salsas, with many of them bringing two or three different flavors, all hoping to walk away with bragging rights to the best salsa in town.

Emceed by ABC 15 Television’s Andi Barness from Sonoran Living Live, guests were invited to sample specialty salsa recipes from around the valley by some of the most distinguished restaurants including the Spotted Donkey Cantina, El Encanto, Tonto Bar & Grill, the Palo Verde at the Boulders Resort and more, while listening to festive Latin, Jazz and American hits on stage by the popular, Freddie Duran Plan band.

In addition, there were tequila tastings from Chamucos Tequila, and The Bakery Café featured traditional Mexican desserts and beverages while the Boulders outdoor grill cooked up hot items including tacos al carbon, and tostada de carnitas.  YUM!

The Roaming Boomers® were honored to be a part of the guest judges panel, and here’s how the winners stacked up:

• 1st Place – Cantina Laredo
• 2nd Place – Palo Verde at The Boulders Resort
• Most Innovative – Spotted Donkey’s Jicama Salsa
• Spiciest – 3 Margaritas.

Congratulations to the winners, and we look forward to next years event.