Hong Kong Festival Highlights
To kick-off Hong Kong's 3rd Wine and Dine Month is the fantastic four-day long wine and dine festival from the 27 - 30 October 2011 at the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade overlooking Victoria Harbour.
Online, October 16, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The festival starts at 8pm on Thursday, continues on Friday from 4pm and at the weekend from 2pm, finishing each night at 11pm. Wine appreciation classes at the Wine School take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons costing HK$100 per person (plus booking fee of HK$10-35), and lasting around 35 minutes. On Saturday and Sunday at 3.15pm there are classes in English on the various vineyards and grapes of Bordeaux, Sunday at 6.15pm there is an English class on Japanese Sake, and one on the skills of blending at 2.15pm on Sunday too. On Friday evening is the Spanish Wine Challenge when the ten best Spanish wines will be chosen and the audience gets to taste the winner, and on Saturday a Japanese evening with cultural entertainment.
More informal wine tasting is available at the different stands, you buy a number of wine tokens when you go into the festival and can redeem these at the stands for a glass. Two passes are available,.a Classic Wine Pass gives you ten tokens (and a glass) and costs HK$180 in advance or HK$200 on the day, and a Grand Wine Pass allows you to taste five premium wines in the pavilion and costs HK$460 in advance or HK$480 on the day. You can also buy individual tokens for HK$10, and one or two of these are needed for each wine tasting.
The event made Forbes Traveller.com top ten list of international food and wine festivals when it first started. Admission is free and there are free shuttle buses there too, running every five minutes to and from the festival and Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui Stations.