Vermont is Awash in Food Festivals This Weekend 

If you’re a food lover, you may want to find a way to clone yourself this weekend — or at least prep your car for major miles. Three food festivals go down in Vermont within a few days, and they’re far enough apart to make trekking necessary.

In Burlington, the Burlington Wine & Food Festival in Waterfront Park has drawn heavy guns: Both iconoclastic California winemaker Randall Grahm (of Bonny Doon Vineyard) and German wine guru Ernst Loosen will hold seminars. Food-wise, expect bites from EB Strong’s Prime Steakhouse, Bluebird Tavern, the Belted Cow Bistro and others, plus hundreds of wines for tasting. Tickets are $50 in advance, $60 the day of the event. You can get your party on before the fest at wine dinners happening at restaurants statewide, from greater Burlington’s Pistou, nika and Guild & Company to Bistro Henry in Manchester.

Up on the mountain, the tent is going up for the annual Stowe Wine & Food Classic, which begins at the Trapp Family Lodge on Friday night. Besides the usual raft of talented chefs at Sunday’s Grand Tasting — including Tom Bivins of Crop Bistro & Brewery, Rogan Lechthaler of the Downtown Grocery and Eric Warnstedt of Hen of the Wood — an auction, a beer-and-cheese pairing, and a wine-and-chocolate tasting are all in the works. (Pistou and Bluebird Tavern will also have representatives at Stowe, suggesting some cloning is indeed going on.) Ticket prices vary by event.

Finally, Grafton will see its first-ever Grafton Food Festival, which kicks off with a vegetarian tasting dinner on Friday night — think pickled beets and wild arugula with caraway and horseradish crème fraîche. The festivities continue through the weekend with cooking demos and displays from central and southern Vermont stalwarts such as Newhall Farm, Two Guys in Vermont and Lyman’s Specialties. The event costs $10.