The Story of the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival Dominique Love and Elizabeth Feichter, co-owners of Corporate Community Outsourcing, a consulting firm that helps corporations and nonprofits maximize their community impact, have each had a life-long love of all things culinary. And in later years (let’s say after achieving legal drinking age), a love for all things wine, beer and cocktail. In 2006, their passion for community intersected their culinary passions when FOOD & WINE engaged the duo to design a national charitable campaign to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the magazine’s FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen. The result was the creation of the Grow for Good campaign and several visits to the Classic in Aspen to manage the program.
After each Aspen visit, the pair would ask the same questions: “Why doesn’t Atlanta have a festival?” and “Wouldn’t it be great to showcase the food and beverage traditions of our region – the entire Southern region?” But it wasn’t just the image of celebrating the best of Southern food and drink that got the two thinking; it was also the notion they could take the best elements of other national festivals, build upon them and then infuse a spirit of honoring the regional food traditions that got them excited.
The idea that they could do their part to preserve a piece Southern culture for the community and their children was what sealed the deal. So was born the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, a weekend like no other that brings together leaders of their craft – barbecue pit masters, award-winning chefs and mixologists, Master Sommeliers, fry cooks and local growers – in the spirit of celebrating the deep food and beverage traditions of the South.
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