There's a moment every spring when The Equinox comes back to life. The lawn games go out. The golf course opens. The patios fill up. The trees in the courtyard finally bloom. This year, that moment is thankfully looking to line up quite nicely with Memorial Day weekend, when the resort acts as host for the Manchester Vermont Food & Wine Festival.
If you know Manchester, the Equinox is an obvious home for a festival of this size. The campus is built for it: long lawns, big rooms, generous parking, a footprint that can absorb a crowd without making it feel like one.
But the bigger reason the festival is anchored at The Equinox is what's rooted in the history here. The Marsh Tavern is older than the United States. Robert Todd Lincoln signed the guest register long before he built Hildene down the road. The Chop House was originally the homestead of Levi Church Orvis, patriarch of the family that would soon found both the Equinox House and the Orvis Company; his initials, L.C. Orvis 1832, are still carved into the marble mantel above the fireplace. Certainly a working hotel with two and a half centuries of dinner-table history attached to it is ideally situated to host an event such as this.
The festival opens Friday, May 22, at 6:30 PM with the VIP Preview Soirée. It's a ticketed event for a smaller, earlier crowd before the Sunday Grand Tasting, and the Equinox's culinary team is running a tasting station alongside the visiting vendors. The spread will include a chef-led carving station, chilled seafood display, and curated wines poured by the team at Farrell Distributors, who handle wine for both the resort and the festival. Representatives from Michael David Winery are also coming in to pour for the weekend.
Two hours of relaxation and tasting, drinks in hand, before the rest of the weekend takes off.
Saturday, the festival fans out across Manchester and the surrounding hills. There's a self-guided pasture walk and cheese tasting at Woodlawn Creamery in Pawlet, a wine-paired lunch at the Southern Vermont Arts Center, a free brewery tour at Lost Marble Brewing in Manchester, vermouth and cider flights at Local Maverick, an afternoon food and wine pairing on the grounds at Hildene, a Mediterranean dinner with Turkish wine pairings at Depot 62 Cafe, and much, much more. The full schedule and ticket links for each event are at vermontfoodfestival.com.
The festival closes back at the Equinox on Sunday, May 24, with the Grand Tasting from 1 to 4 PM (VIP ticket holders get in at noon). This is the headline event: local, regional, and international wines and spirits poured side by side, gourmet bites from area restaurants, the Green Mountain Experience showcase featuring Vermont artisans and small-batch producers, live music, raffles, and a complimentary gift bag for every ticket holder.
Tickets to the Grand Tasting and the VIP Soirée are on Eventbrite.
If we had one suggestion, it's to make the property itself part of the experience.
The Marsh Tavern is open all weekend, in a room that's been hosting drinks and dinner under different names since 1769. We were over there earlier this week shooting food photography for festival coverage and the food is as delicious and beautifully presented as the resort itself, served in a room that's been the heart of the property for over two centuries.
Falcon Bar's patio is also open and The Chop House is doing a grand reopening that same weekend with a wine dinner on Saturday night featuring Michael David Winery, the same producer pouring at the festival. Outside the dining rooms, the rest of the property is coming back to life. The Dormy Grill, the casual sandwich-and-deck spot down on the golf course, opens for the season Memorial Day weekend.
"It's kind of waking the property back up out of its slumber," says John Barth, the Equinox's Director of Food & Beverage. "Memorial Day weekend, is when it all comes alive for the summer, and that's a big thing for us."
The Equinox is running a stay package built for the festival called the Grand Tasting Escape. It includes 10% off your stay and exclusive access to the Friday VIP Preview Soirée (a $155-per-person value), available for stay dates May 21 through May 24, with the requirement that guests stay the night of May 22 to attend the Soirée. The package is bookable directly through the resort at equinoxresort.com/offers.
Memorial Day at the Equinox is what a hotel waits all winter for. The festival is the headline, the resort is the home base for your weekend, and both are going to be well worth remembering.
Must be 21+ to consume alcohol. Please drink responsibly.
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