The wine Fest - guest post by Pink M

Welcome to history being made right here right now: for the first time ever your dearest Rafiki Kenya blog is being opened up to two well renowned guest bloggers: Nairobinotes and Pink M. A couple of weeks ago, I announced the Annual Nairobi Wine Festival in my post Get stylish and drunk. Many readers encouraged me to do a review afterwards. But unfortunately, duty called and I was not able to participate in the event this week-end. When I announced this very sad news on Twitter, these two legendary Kenyans immediately offered their services in their usual helpful and friendly way, so I decided to open up this space for them. Nairobinotes posted yesterday, mainly on the wines, and Pink M is posting today, mainly on anything else apart from the wines. Happy reading!

Just to warn the wine enthusiasts; the person doing this post knows jack about wine, is slightly tipsy at the moment, and has no recollection of the wines that led her to this state, so sorry, no wines review here.

First off, it’s a good idea to go for a wine festival with someone who doesn’t drink at all. Why? Because you get to drink doubles of everything! Duh! You also get someone to take the photos of the thing, while you’re busy downing half glasses of the stuff.

Well, got there 30 minutes late, thanks to the sun and Nairobi traffic, but that didn’t dampen my spirit. Actually, I was in the right mood for some wine. I was all melancholic and ready to be made happy…. Walk in to some very friendly reception, we get our nice glasses which we were to carry home after the shing dig. Basically, there were about 10 stands by the various wine importers, KWAL, and the makers of Sierra Beer .

The Good

• All the attendants in the various stands were really nice, they seemed to know their thing.
  
• Affordable wines. This is good because I got to sample really good wines that don’t break the bank.
  
• The music!! The one man band was really awesome. He did some pretty good classics reminiscent of The Sundwoner show in KBC. I really had the intention of asking who he was on my way out. Somewhere halfway through the fest, my intentions out the window.
  
• The poolside restaurant at Holiday Inn is really pretty and airy. Mental note to have a date there sometime.
  
• We got a free wine glass. Nice!
  

The Alright

• There was only one water dispenser to like rinse the glasses and the mouth, and it was somewhere on the 4th stand. However, the pool provided a lot of water to rinse the glasses in, too bad I didn’t want to shame my company by rinsing it in there, mouth too. I decided after all, I’m here just to drink, it didn’t matter that by wine 3, they all smelled the same to me because of the mixing and all.
  
• The bitings were long in coming.
  
• I know it was ‘wine tasting’ but really, they could have served more wine. I had to ask for second helpings of the stuff I liked :D
  

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, discovered a really good local wine Leleshwa Rosé by Rift Valley Wineries, I recruited my non drinking company into liking some of the wines, and yeah, I really should have taken Rafiki’s advice not to wear heels and have a meal. I was in the highest of them, and hadn’t had lunch. The shoes weren’t a problem until I had to walk back to the car. I’m pretty sure I’d have walked straighter in flat shoes.