Dripping With Taste Wine & Food Festival

I thought this was an awesome event! Yes you had to pay $ 40 for entrance into the event. For that money you receive a twin Iiquors reusable bag, some goodies inside the bag including a wine glass, 10 food tickets and 6 wine tickets. Each wine ticket was good for a 1oz pour. And the food tickets could be used at more than 10 food vendors for various amounts. It is called Dripping with Taste because it is supposed to be a «taste» not a full glass or full meal. I will tell you that I had plenty of food for my 10 tickets! And got to try 6 different wines!
I will say that a previous post about volunteers having to work 2 hours and then getting unlimited food and drinks is absolutely false. Volunteers had to work a minimum of 3 hour shifts but most worked many, many more hours not only the day of the event but also prior to the event and they got the same 10 food tickets and 6 alcohol tickets.
I learned a lot about local wineries, breweries, and distilleries and tasted some awesome food from some local restaurants that I had not yet eaten at.

This is probably more of a 3.5 than a 4, but the low ratings to date are unjustified so I’m bumping it up. I enjoyed the wide variety of beer, wine, and liquor to choose from, but I wish there were a few more food options. What made it worth the price of admission was the sommelier talk at 3:30 where there was no-​ticket-​required wine comparison tasting, and I learned a few things. Take advantage of those demos if you go next year. Also there were a few food stands with free samples no tickets required (pecans were a favorite, olive oil, chips and salsa, etc). I wish I had hit the liquor area sooner, they seemed to have generous pours. I may hit this event again next year, or I may not, but I definitely had a good time.

Definitely not worth your money. 50.00 per person with very little vendors for the money. 10 food tickets and 6 wine/​spirit tickets. Filler vendors for example Sysco and HEB to make the place appear fuller. Don’t do it.

If you choose to attend this festival, DO NOT PAY. You get 6 drink tickets and 10 food tickets for $ 40. 1 oz pours. That’s about ¹⁄₆ of a glass of wine. So you pay $ 40 for a single glass of wine. HEB gave away 2 chips with salsa for 1 ticket, empanadas were 5 tickets. I was denied BUYING a bottle of water, so that the volunteers could have them.
This brings me to the point, if you want to go to dripping with taste, volunteer. They treat the volunteers far better than paying guests. They do their jobs for 2 hours then get to enjoy UNLIMITED drinks and food and get cool shirts that aren’t available to buy to us regulars.
I was very unimpressed Dripping Springs.

Went to this event for my birthday and… gee…what a rip. Like the other person said its located at a huge agricultural pavilion for horse and gun shows. I live in Drippings and saw this massive structure being erected. Its quite the eye sore. That’d be fine if it wasn’t so expensive. Worse, it is actually held in a tiny closed off indoor part of the complex that’s maybe a ¹⁄₈^th the size of the whole place. Needless to say, it was over crowded, people packed in like sardines. My family wanted to leave rather quickly because it just flat out sucked. Some the vendors were generous some were stingy and acted like it was a chore to deal with you. Stay away from this event.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day at Dripping With Taste. Having missed the event last year, we weren’t sure what to expect at the new venue. Mother Nature decided that we needed some rain, and she was right! Though we were a little soggy when we arrived, that didn’t dampen our spirits. We sampled food from most of the vendors, the quality was outstanding and we found everyone to be warm, friendly and knowledgable. As always, great wines, loved the beer garden, and glad to see the addition of spirits. The music added a nice ambience. We enjoyed our beer, wine and food sitting comfortably watching the shows. We had a wonderful day, we’re looking forward to next year’s Dripping With Taste. The Chamber should be very proud of this years event.

After reading the other reviews I felt that I had to write one myself. Just how many wine festivals have these people attended?!
I have attended literally dozens of wine festivals, mostly in California. Believe me that the Dripping with Taste Festival is, by far, the best value on the market. Spending $ 40 for the initial tickets is next to nothing compared to the analogous events in California. AND purchasing additional tickets for a buck each is very cheap compared to other such events.
I have attended the last two Dripping with Taste festivals and plan to continue to attend every year. I look forward to this event based on the quality of the event and the very, very low cost. Both years I have come away with the feeling that I got more than my money’s worth and found several Texas wines to add to my wine cellar!

A piss poor event.
It was raining when we arrived, I know that no one can help that, but we were one of the first to arrive and we directed to park at the back end of a mud field. Instead of filling up the lot nearest the event, we had to walk though a water logged muddy field.
Then the signing up volunteers, one of the online register volunteers, was the rudest person I have met in a long time. She reminded me of one of the Orks from Lord of the Rings.
So you get 10 food tickets and 6 drink tickets. What you fail to learn until you have paid ($ 50) is that 10 food tickets doesn’t mean 10 small samples, all of the samples were multiple tickets. Essentially, your $ 50 gets you two tacos and the six drink tickets equal about one glass of wine.
A truly crap festival.

They did a good job this year except for signage. There was a huge lack thereof at the back entrance where they were having everyone park when I arrived.
Everyone parking had no idea where to go.
Other than that, the new Ranch/​event center is nice. There were lots of vendors and lots to choose from. The tickets were more than enough to try things and the staff were friendly. Dripping Springs is a gorgeous city that should be visited by all.

This was by far the most awful «festival» I have ever had the misfortune of wasting money on.
First of all, in 2012 it was held at the Texas Hill Country Olive Company. So all advertisements this year were of a gorgeous event at this lovely vineyard — The photos were of a classy event, surrounded by olive trees and rolling hills, adorable art booths scattered about the lovely property, smiling faces holding wine glasses. I was so excited based on what I was reading of the Olive Company event that I had my mother travel up 3 hours on the morning of Saturday the 14^th to accompany me. Then I convinced another girlfriend of mine to join. We had our tickets in advance, $ 40.00 online purchase, and my girlfriend paid at the door — $ 50.00.
Now, regardless of where the ACTUAL event for 2013 was advertised as being held — between the advertisements on Unilocal,on Facebook and scattered about Dripping Springs, it was VERY unclear to anyone coming from outside of town where the hell this event actually was.
So we arrived at the Texas Hill Country Olive Company to find no tents, no events, no nothing but a beautiful building surrounded by beautiful land. Inside there were very few customers. But we were greeted warmly, given amazing samples (DO go there and DO try their olive oils and balsamic vinegars and DO check out their $ 55.00 romantic date night packages).
Making the best of what was already frustrating, we had a few samples and they sent us on to the Dripping Springs Park Ranch — or something like that, up Ranch Road Twelve.
We were still optimistic until we saw the HUGE metal pavilion looming ahead, situated in the midst of probably two square miles of plowed up red dirt which will eventually be a parking lot. As we navigated in, driving through dirt among hundreds of cars, we noticed piles of dirt, bull dozers, caution tape… this entire venue was a.) an agricultural fair pavilion and b.) UTTERLY UNFINISHED.
I was mortified. I brought guests, I paid money, and we were supposed to be in the midst of lush, rolling hill country sipping wine and sampling cheese. Not walking through 300 yards of dirt to get to an unfinished metal building. This was already so embarrassing and already not worth the money.
We had to enter at the back of this enormous, godawful construction, walk through the art vendors, then across MORE dirt on the rodeo floor (where the paying guests tables were and the music) where we were given six drink tickets and ten food tickets. When we reached the one interior part of the building, we were encountered by swarms of casually dressed, generally rude, pushy guests who were buzzing around a square room with no proper traffic flow. There we found out that each drink ticket gave us ONE OUNCE of wine, which was poured by rude and distracted vendors. We also found that each food ticket did not entitle us to a sample — samples cost anywhere from 2 to 5 tickets. One ticket got you the likes of ONE chip with a dollop of something on it.
I was blocked and almost run over by a RUDE and completely OBLIVIOUS staff member who was blocking the only entrance to the tasting room. Other guests were hogging the only FIVE standing tables in the are, they’d put their purses up there and stand around and send other guests to get them samples, so there was no where to set down your things and you had to juggle a glass of wine, your tickets, your purse, and a plate of food and in order to eat it, back through the ONE door you went, down the stairs to the dirt on the rodeo arena floor.
We left without even using the tickets we had — not worth the paltry return for what we’d spent and what we had to endure to get there.
I will never return to this event. I want my money back from this event. The Dripping Springs Chamber of Commerce should be ashamed of the overall mess and disappointment this fiasco was — they don’t deserve a dime of the money they raised from it.
TERRIBLE.