Scott and I love Zaytinya and we love wine. The combination of the two is brilliance personified. From now through September 28th, Zaytinya is holding an event to celebrate the almighty grape. Not only will there be awesome wine selections, but several dishes are on parade that center around that versatile fruit.

Zaytinya Grape Festival

We had an opportunity to sample the dishes, wine pairings, and cocktails that will be offered throughout the course of the event. 6 new dishes and desserts can be expected to get your mouth watering, including a non-alcohol house made grape soda. Easily our favorite dishes were the Mutancene, a lamb shank braised with raisins, almonds, and dried plums, and the Squash Dolmades which was rice, raisins, and local fall squash all stuffed into grape leaves.

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Being served through the duration of the festival, the  Heard it Through the Grape Pine is a can’t miss drink.  Obviously there is always a dessert option and the Concord Grape Cornita is well-worth the indulgence.

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In addition to the wonderful food over the two week period, on September 23rd Zaytinya will host a wine dinner with the House of Billecart-Salmon Champagne. The dinner will include food pairings crafted by Head Chef Michael Costa and is set to begin at 7pm. Reservations can be purchased for $100 by RSVP’ing to jacklyns@Zaytinya.com.

If you’re unable to get to Zaytinya before the festival wraps up there is always another reason to stop in. It remains one of our favorite places to tell people about. To cap off another wonderful trip, Scott volunteered to jump into a jug of grapes and he stomped his way to another great memory at one of our favorite places. Thankfully, none of the grapes he stepped on where used for any of the drinks or dishes.

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Cheers!