Fall Wine Fest

Hahahahahaha this is one of the most poorly managed events I have gone to. I was given two free tickets from my friend (she got them for free but couldn’t go), so a coworker and I went. We think we came at an off peak time, so entering the Cyclorama only took a few minutes. Then we went inside, and the lines were crazy. Sips were not generous and the reps were not interested in talking about the wine, just trying to deal with crowd management. In the center of the room, there were random vendors/​sponsors, selling scarves… and fertility services (I’m not kidding… that said, the savory cheesecake and beef jerky stands were my favorite samples).
I won’t complain about free wine — but that was only due to my friend and her free tickets. I can’t imagine how it must have felt for folks who paid for their tickets, especially since we peaced out after 30 minutes (and probably got less than a wine glass’ worth of sampling). Given the Unilocal star trend, it doesn’t look they have really improved over time. Yikes!

THIS IS A SCAM!!!
If you are looking to spend 2 hours of staying in 20-​minutes lines to literally get 2 drops of poor quality wine, in a super crowded hall, then go to the Spring — Fall Wine Fest. I guarantee at the end of the night you would have drank probably one half of a normal wine glass for a price of ($ 69 — full price). Considering how much these tickets sell for, I could have bought a fairly good bottle of wine and enjoyed it in a much nicer setting than the hall where this «festival» is organized.
We left after 30 minutes and went to the close by Beehive for a night of music, drinks and food. Much much better deal!

Not too bad. There was a variety of wines — tons and tons of booze — but I wouldn’t consider most of them vintage. Although, I guess you can’t expect that, considering we only paid $ 40. I did expect a bit more for what I paid though, but as I was fairly content by the end of the festival due to all the wine, I can’t say the experience was a dub. There could have been more complementary tastings such as cheese and crackers to go with the festival (although they did have a cheese sampling table). In summary, lots of different wines from various regions, but my palate would disagree any bottle if worth over $ 20. Additional complementary booths should also be added, and the layout of the festival could use some work in my opinion. I may or may not return, depending on what other types of wine festivals /​tastings are out there.

DO NOT GO.
The Fall Wine Fest may be the worst event that I have ever been to. So bad, in fact, that it spurred me to write my first Unilocal review in months. I only hope that you had the foresight to check Unilocal before you bought tickets. If you already bought tickets, then I suggest that you try to get a refund by any possible means.
I can’t help but think that the Fall Wine Fest is just a giant scam designed to make some money off cheap, low-​quality wine that is too bad to be sold otherwise. Participating wine merchants are clearly aware of this, as none of them even was selling bottles or crates to take home.
Some «highlights» from the 2013 Wine Fest:
— There are some 30 stalls, but only 20 of them are focused on ‘wine’ products. Other stalls include: some promotional stalls for Nestle creamer, a photo booth, and a airbrush tattoo stand.
— The lowest quality wine selection that I have ever seen. I’m all for sampling cheaper wines… And I don’t mind a glass of Charles Shaw and Yellowtail then and again, but this was the type of stuff that is stocked at Gas Station convenience stores. Lots of «blends»
— Terrible logistics: long lines to get in, long lines to get wine, plastic wine cups, and a a lack of water (I am aware that they have water at the stands, but if you have to wait in line to get water, then that’s not easy access).

I agree with most commenter’s on here. This is the worst wine event I had ever gone to. Considering the price which was more expensive than the Wine riot, (wine riot is 1,000,000 times better) I thought the people pouring would know something about wine or at least how to pronounce a bottle. The first table I went to I asked the guy pouring what kind of white wine he was pouring (Sauvignon Blanc) literally just looked at the bottle and said «saaa saaa here» and just poured it. I quickly realized that the people hosting the event must have just hired anyone asking can you pour a bottle??? Ok good!
I started laughing when a younger guy pouring wine said «I don’t drink wine or even know what this sh*t is «to which I replied (laughing) dude seriously just look at the back of the bottle and remember a couple of the sentences and you will be a pro at this event. The fact that this event still exists and is in an area that has such high quality restaurants (Hamersleys, butcher shop, and B&G Oysters literally next door and across the street) is baffling. Not to mention the wine selection was very low end mostly ranging from $ 7-​$ 12 a bottle.
However, there was one great table and it was not even wine. The Moonlight Meadery table was fantastic and offered a lot of information and great variety of meads. The gentleman pouring for us was very informed on the history of their mead, what types of mead go with what food, and even what kind to use for a reduction sauce when cooking. He even gave us a taste of their high end Mead that is used from barrels they get from Jim Koch (almost like a sweet bourbon taste).
No I do not work for Moonlight Meadery or anything like that just feel the need to give them the respect they deserve. In a sea of disappointment to the point of it being entertaining, they were the one table that made it tolerable to stay.

While it seems others have felt differently in past years, I actually had a wonderful time at the 2012 Fall Wine Fest put on my Boston Event Guide.
I went with my sister, her boyfriend, and a friend, and we all had a blast!
I don’t know if the event has changed, or the organization has gotten better, but I really can’t complain about a lovely afternoon filled with never-​ending wine, meads and beer samples plus a good amount of snack food along the way.
Not to mention the delicious crêpe we all shared from a personal favorite café: the Paris Creperie.
Overall, the event was wonderful. Granted there were a lot of people there, I never had to wait more than a minute in line!
For a full review on my blog, visit here:

I don’t know how much I can add to the other reviews here, except to say that it’s clear that no one gave much thought to the organization of the booths, the crowd flow, or even the admission process. The problems weren’t simply due to a popular event being crowded. They were completely avoidable, and the event planners dropped the ball. I would almost guess that they knew it was going to be a disaster, and held people up at the door just to thin things out.
And for all that trouble and expense, the wines were across the board below average offerings from indifferent representatives of mass market wines. Complete waste of money. We got fed up, left early, and went to an immensely more enjoyable free wine tasting at a local store.

Terrible event. Total ripoff. The people at Boston Event Guide who organized it should be ashamed.
The ratio of wine pourers to attendees was probably 30 – 1, which meant you spent 98% of your time in line. How can you charge people to wait 15 minutes in line for a measly sip of wine? What a joke.
I’ve been to Beer Advocate events at The Cyclorama that were great, so its obviously possible to have events here that don’t have insane lines and just suck in general. I think Boston Event Guides were interested solely in swindling people out of their money, not organizing a good wine fest.
To top it all of the DJ played «Hey Soul Sister» aka The Worst Song Ever Made.

I would go to this event if it were free, I had a LOT of free time, no expectations, and was desperate for alcohol. But it was not worth the half price ticket I bought. Long lines, terrible wine, horribly designed, bad acoustics, even the cheese samples were gross.

TERRIBLE! Poorly organized, long lines, too many people!
OK, so I wasn’t expecting much out of a $ 20 wine and food festival, but this one didn’t even meet those low expectations. The biggest problem was extremely poor organization.
When we showed up at the start time (12PM) the line to get in was all the way around the corner and up Clarendon Street. It took 30 minutes to get in. The event was scheduled to end sharply at 2:30 so they basically wasted 20% of our time by making us stand in line.
When we got to the front of the line it was clear why. They only had one person checking names. Ironically, our name wasn’t on the list. They asked if we had brought a printout of our email and we said «you mean the one that said not to bring a printout because our name would be on the list.» Luckily, they were so frazzled by the huge crowd that they let us in.
This is unacceptable since all admission tickets had to be pre-​purchased online so they knew EXACTLY how many people to expect. They just didn’t care to have enough people working the event to avoid long lines.
The Cyclorama was filled to capacity with at least 500 people jostling and jockeying to get their tastings. Unfortunately, of the 25 or so «booths» only about one third were actually wine booths. The rest were clothing, wine racks, tupperware, potato chips… there was even a booth selling fiberglass insulation!
To add insult to injury one of the booths we were most looking forward to, the «Finale» dessert booth, had given out all of their samples only an hour after the event started and said they wouldn’t be restocked. Again, this is unacceptable since they knew exactly how many people were coming.
The actual wines available were mediocre mass market wineries like Barefoot, Robert Mondavi and Simi.
The only unexpected delight was the stand tasting flavored nut mix called «Nutorious».
If you like standing in line half an hour and then standing in line again on average 10 – 15 minutes at 25 differnet booths for mediocre wines, this is the event for you. If not, skip this. There are many great and well-​run wine and food festivals in Boston… this is not one of them.

Before you can even get in to judge, you have to stand in a line of about 100 – 150 people that goes around the block. My session started at noon. I got there at 12:15, stood in line until 12:50, and get into the session around 1pm that ended at 2:15pm. There were only 2 people checking names for an event that they knew how many people would be showing up for. When asked about what would be done about the long line, I was told that EVERYONE WOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE LONG LINE. Clearly, the front desk staff doesn’t care if this event happens again.
The wine was okay. The line to the wine vendors were usually 15 – 30 people, meaning you were waiting about 10 – 15 minutes to sip 2 tastings. There were only 3 – 4 food vendors. I heard good things about Finale, but they ran out of food half way through, and then the girl at the post sat in the corner on her cell phone and ignored us. So I never was able to try their samplings.
I got the the deal for $ 19 on Buy With Me, though full price tickets were $ 69. This event is barely worth $ 19.
Overall, have been very disappointed in the Cyclorama events. This, like Shecky’s, was overpriced, overbooked, and incredibly disappointing.
Will not go to the Fall Wine Fest again. Will not go to a Cyclorama event again.