Autumn Wine Festival in pictures and text

Oct 19, 2008

For this exercise I'm going to subdivide the post into four parts: the politics, the crowds, the music, and the still lifes.

Since there really wasn't all that much political that I didn't cover in last night's post I'll begin there.

The politics:

The ribbon cutting drew a few politicos, including Wicomico County Council President John Cannon (with the microphone), his cohort on County Council David MacLeod (far left), Delegate Jim Mathias (rear, partly hidden by sign) and Tyler Patton, who represented Senator Mikulski's office (obscured by cornstalk).

I was sort of surprised that so few of our county elected officials turned out, although I can account for at least one being away. Our booth had one welcome visitor a little later:

Delegate Addie Eckardt (left) was helping to hold our tent up along with Woody Willing.

And what were the Democrats up to?

Hey, where did the Democrats go? It's only 5:30 and the festival's open until 6.

Okay, I'm having a little fun at their expense. This was them on Sunday - I took this picture from in front of our space so it's not a closeup. The tent is actually behind them.

I think I saw maybe 2 of their Kratovil signs and 2 of their Obama signs leaving - granted people didn't have to pass by us on the way out but they had a lot of signs left on Sunday.

It turned out we were tentless today as well - apparently the gusty winds caught our tent sometime last night and toppled it over, stakes and all. Undaunted, we set up shop today nonetheless.

The top of our tent ended up impaled on that tall fence post behind us, but we pressed on. A couple other tents were damaged by the strong gusts as well.

The crowds:

I heard during a radio remote that Saturday's crowd was a record. Didn't look like it to me. The first picture was taken Saturday afternoon along the row of crafters, the second today in between the wineries.

This picture was taken a little after 3:30 on Saturday, looking along the row of crafters toward the stage.

This picture was taken a little after 4:00 on Sunday - maybe an hour after the peak crowds. I'm looking between the wineries toward the stage.

The music:

I'm not a jazz guy at all - you can tell my tastes from the local band links I have on my site. But there were a lot of talented musicians on stage who should get their due, so I have shots of the seven groups who played the festival this time around.

Opening up the affair Saturday was the Brian Perez Quartet.

I guess calling themselves The Jazz Guys is a loose term.

Solo saxophonist Everett Spells came well-equipped with saxophones.

The Backfin Banjo Band plays a number of local events, most recently they were at our McCain-Palin rally.

Sunday began with onetime Bad Company bassist Paul Cullen and his group.

By far the largest group was the UMES Jazz Band, who also performed Sunday afternoon.

Closing out the music was On The Edge, who had the people dancing.

Still life:

I just like to shoot some artsier shots when the AWF rolls around. Perhaps it's the classical idea of bottles as still life, or just a question I had to ask. There's only three, so pardon my indulgence.

What is it about wine labels? There's a lot of creativity there, and these Basignani Winery examples were nice and colorful on a dreary Saturday.

Once the sun came out on Sunday, it brought out the color of what's inside the bottle better. These are from a local winery called Bordeleau.

Since this business was here last year, I guess they do well with the wine-tasting crowd. But is this for before, during, or after the wine-drinking?

Other than the tent mishap and being cold most of the time, the Autumn Wine Festival was a lot of fun, and I met friends old and new there. The interest in McCain items was a definite bonus on the political front, but watching the crowd was fun too. So I'm sure we'll give this another go next year.

Autumn Wine Festival in pictures and text

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