The azcentral.com Food & Wine Experience  this year took place at Salt River Fields at The Talking Stick in Scottsdale Arizona November 5th-6th 2016. Over the course of two days there were around 60 restaurants, a combination of 200 wines, beers and spirits, chef demos, discussion panels and more! The superstar headliner for day 1 was Celebrity Chef, Restauranteur and Cookbook Author Mario Batali.

General Admission was either $90 a day or $150 for two days

VIP Admission was $120 a day and bought you one hour early access, close seating to the stage, AJ’s Fine Foods Lounge and Preferred Restrooms.

Mario Batali appeared in the discussion panel, was present for an optional addition lunch service and signed his new cookbooks that were given out at this event.

Local Celebrity Chef, James Beard Award Winner  and former host of public television TV Show called Check Please very own………….  Robert McGraft participated in a cooking demo.

And now to the Grand Tasting….. 🙂

For whatever reason I was gifted with VIP Tickets 🙂

This is how it looked when you were a VIP

This is how it looked when general admission arrived.

Here were a few of the tastings

Can’t wait till tomorrow!