The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience has evolved into a high-end event. The Grand Tastings are very expensive despite the fact that you get to eat food from the city’s best restaurants and taste some of the best wine on the planet. Unless you are in the restaurant or bar business and the event is a business expense, the cost makes attending prohibitive for many.
However, there is an option for enjoying the ambiance of the NOWFE without busting your budget—head down to the French Quarter this evening between 5:30 and 8:30 PM for the Royal Street Stroll. Dozens of galleries and shops stay open late and music fills the air as people with custom-embossed glasses sample wine and food at the various authorized stops.
Participation in the stroll costs nearly $100 dollars and it sells out early, but the street is still open to the public. Along the way, there are musicians stationed at many of the intersections between the 300 and 900 blocks.
Last year we saw the intriguing combination of the clarinetist Christopher Kohl of the Hot Club of New Orleans performing a duet with the guitarist Rafael Bas of the Gypsy Swing Trio. Jayna Morgan and the Sazerac Sunrise Band and Margie Perez were also playing.
But my personal favorite part of the Royal Street Stroll is the parade by the Krewe of Cork (pictured). This wine-themed marching group dresses up in costumes that reflect their collective passions with the grape and they always hire some of the best musicians in town who join with the leader, trombonist Freddie Lonzo, as the Cork Poppas Brass Band.
Expect to see trumpeters Leroy Jones and Gregg Stafford, trombonist Lucien Barbarin, clarinetist Dr. Michael White, drummers Lawrence Batiste, Shannon Powell or even Herlin Riley.
The Krewe of Cork parades up and down the street and you don’t have to be an official participant in the Royal Street Stroll to tag along and enjoy the music.
