Balboa Island Wine Walk

Came here with low expectations since I knew it was their first event, but overall I still had a great time even though the wine ran out quick and the appetizers were a bit embarrassing for the cost of the tickets. It did get crowded and uncomfortable in those little boutique stores that don’t have A/​C.

Wow, some brutal reviews. I agree that it was very poorly organized, and running out of wine at several places 2 hours into a 4 hour event is totally unacceptable. This being their first event we agreed that we would give them one more shot at their November event, as they plan on putting this on twice a year.
That being said, my buddy and I did have a fun experience despite the long lines. For two single guys you couldn’t ask for a better ratio of ladies to men. We estimated 4 – 1, and most of the ladies arrived with club worthy makeup and clothes. Most everyone was in a festive mood, and we shared many laughs with our fellow revelers.
Full disclosure, I did win two tickets from Unilocal (thanks Ryan!) otherwise I may have been more disappointed in the lack of food and the very low quality of the major percentage of the wine offered.
Hopefully the event organizers learned from all of the negative issues, and next time will be a great experience for all.

In theory, this was a good event. However, it just wasn’t quite planned out well. I’m glad we got there early, since I heard that many places ran out of food and wine later in the day. The ticket system was definitely confusing, and I think many volunteers were unsure of the protocol. Some stores were also too small to accommodate the large lines and crowds. That being said, I thought it was a fun day out. The wine tasted great on a beautiful day, and it was fun exploring a part of Newport that we don’t usually visit. I would probably give the event another chance knowing that it was their first time!

This is their 1^st time doing this event in Balboa so I’m guessing that’s why they were so under prepared & sold out so quickly.
Check in process was a pain, even 1 hr into the event & there was still long lines. They should have had more people helping out for this process. –1
They didnt expect the crowds so they didn’t tell the wine vendors to bring enough wine so most places had ran out of wines before the last hour of the event. –1
Even though they had food tickets, food was tiny & limited in selection. –1
Traffic can be a pain in this area so it was better to park outside of this area & walk in.
Great concept to support local merchants & businesses in the area. +1
This event was definitely not for wineos because most wines they were pouring were ones you can find at Costco & were just ok. –1
Hopefully they can learn from this event & add more wines, selection, vendors & food.
Tips: Bring a hat because the sun was brutal & tons of cops patrolling this event so be careful.

Crowd management was heinous., 45 minutes in an alley to funnel into one check in station run by one guy doing his best. …then similar lines throughout the day, picture Disneyland length lines. More than half of the wine pourers knew nothing about the wine. In some stops you could leave the store and drink on a bench. Others wouldn’t let you leave the store until you finished, which left an elbow to elbow mob so unpleasant I wondered where the fire marshall was. In many places gourmet food was nuts and a cracker with cheese. A couple of places tried harder. The event was scheduled 2 – 7. We got these at 3 and many places had run out of wine by 6. We took a break and ate at Wilma’s Patio, which was very nice… then at 6:30 went to their wine station, same place. The event people told us they were out of wine unless you were VIP… and the message was delivered in a very rude manner. We watched as other were treated the same. We talked to several VIP’s, they had the same negative experience. All in all a horrible day. We won’t be back.

I am not sure the reviewers that gave this event more than 2 stars were on the same «walk» that I was on. I could talk for days about the long lines that began at check-​in and were present at every store participating. Then there was the fact that this was not a walk, as the act of walking means that you are mobile and we were advised immediately that walking on the sidewalk with your wine was illegal. So we were prisoners in small boutiques with so many other people, we couldn’t move or breathe let alone look around at our surroundings. Additionally, the staff members pouring the wines were so rude, and unaware of even basic details of what they were serving. Their indifference to all of us potential patrons was so upsetting, I did not, nor will I ever spend my money at those places. While yes, I understand the event staff are not store employees or management, they do represent the boutique and winery they are serving at the time. The marketing company (CMC Inc. Marketing Agency) that sponsored this event did all the businesses in Balboa an injustice yesterday. The merchants should be angry and distraught as I am sure I am not the only person who spent my money with other retailers today who cared about my comfort and enjoyment of their atmosphere and products. The event staff should have been given more training (especially in being friendly), had more product (running out of wine well before ending time is completely unacceptable), and offering bits of cheese with crackers or some olives and tomatoes is ridiculous for admission price of over $ 43 and much higher. At one point, I was told they were not pouring any more wine until 7 and then only if I was a VIP! This was at 6:30 at Wilma’s Patio after being a paying customer at the restaurant! When we inquired again moments later, an «exception» was made for us (what a joke as we were entitled to our paid for tastings), but while pouring the reds for me and my mom, negative comments such as «fine, but after this, we are so done with them!», along with other offensive and unnecessary remarks were made. And our friend was lied to when she requested to taste the white wine. She was told they didn’t have any more while the staffs hand was firmly attached to a bottle in an ice bowl. I’ll close with the fact that I am an amateur winemaker, and one of my tools is a wine thief. This is what I use to «steal» tastes from my wine while it is aging. Let me just say that my wine thief is nothing compared to the wine thieves of the Balboa Island Wine Walk as they did a fine job of robbing us!

We purchased the VIP tickets for the event.
One the plus side:
It was a lot of fun! We explored some stores we had never been in before and even picked up some nice things. (purchases of over $ 50 were rewarded with extra raffle tickets at the event afterward)
We’ve been on wine walks before where the wine was the stuff you find on the bottom shelf of Ralph’s wine selection near the boxed wines. These wines were much better, but don’t set the expectation that you’re touring the Napa Valley here.
The people in the stores and working the event worked really hard and were great ambassadors. Everyone had a smile on their face and was happy to see you at their store and event.
The suggestion to take Lyft to the event (along with free ride event code) was wonderful! Although there was ample parking off Bayside at one of the check in places, it was still nice not having to worry about driving afterward.
We recently moved to Newport so it was a great way to meet people from the area and have some fun.
For their very first Wine Walk event, I would say this went about as good as could be expected!
Some things I hope the event planners took note of for next time:
The check in system was quickly overwhelmed. Having more people check attendees in and maybe using the ticket scanning system EventBrite has built into their tickets might speed things up a bit.
We stood in line for about 30 minutes waiting to get into the VIP event. Thanks to some crowd sponsored libations (shhhhh!) in line, it was not that bad of a wait.
The VIP part of the party rendered a nice swag bag and raffle but in a very crowded atmosphere in the back room at Wilma’s. The wonderful woman reading out the winning numbers could hardly be heard above the din, but she gave it her all.
We were under the impression there might be some nicer wines at the event and they didn’t have much selection, although J Lohr was a nice Wine Walk surprise!
Overall, it was a memorable day and we had a great time. I left one star off my review to award at the next Wine Walk, which we definitely plan on attending!

World’s worst wine walk. Terrible planning, massive lines, awful food and to top it off they ran out of the mediocre wine at several stores within 2 hours of start time. Cops standing around wanting to bust you for drinking in the street did not assist in enjoying the thimble full of wine received. We took our $ 40 wine glasses and did our own wine walk at home. Never again! Balboa wine walk should be renamed Balboa standing in line without wine walk.

If the overall idea of this event was to get tourists to avoid Balboa Island at all costs they accomplished what they were trying to to do.
The genius that came up with the idea of herding people into small shops so they can drink bottom shelf wine and eat stale peanuts from plastic cups for over $ 40.00 should run for political office [so victim’s can at least know the face of their aggressor].
All I can say for the rude and arrogant event staff is, narcissist much? These people would probably be a able to obtain real jobs if they had any social graces or skills. I was absolutely amazed at their treatment of some of the people at the event… you people should be ashamed!
For anyone looking to have a fun time at Balboa Island I would recommend avoiding this or any event sponsored by the Balboa Island Robber Barons… I mean merchants association.

waited 45 minutes in a claustrophobic wtf double line snaking into an alley to get our glass. i felt like playing dice.
the ticket limitation was a sad surprise, like going to Disneyland in 1980 and finding out you get ride tickets! And that they’re all A tickets (basically the fire truck and obstructed view seats at Abe Lincoln)
you had to wait in lines that narrowly twisted past eager «everything is 10 percent off» clerks and racks of sweatshirts, baby clothes, baby sweatshirts, and the kind of jewelry your friend makes on etsy and guilts you into buying
i waited ten minutes behind a mannequin.
then because it is illegal to drink the wine out of the store you had to drink the wine in the store with limited space so you were always in someone’s way. i got more elbows than Shaq.
one store was Blontourage. Blontourage… is your a/​c even ONtourage? i am going to get heat exhaustiONTourage. The italian place was nice and had great food options, but you had to stand around empty tables, unable to sit, while the few patrons there for a meal sadly watched the masses surround them like some sort of boring flash mob. the art gallery was so crowded we just started gulping the stuff down.
worst of all they ran out of wine 2 hours in (unacceptable for an event with limited wine tickets, especially considering they could have consulted a UCI student to do the math)
And the food was promoted to be from vendors from newport beach but it was mostly dry olives or decrepid meat and cheese on long toothpicks, semi-​stale crackers, or a cup of nuts. the italian fried ball and the cilantro chicken skewer was good, the dry caprese salad skewer, no. of course then you have some Larry David skewer hands.
‘
mismanaged and claustrophobic, out of wine, we left and gave our remaining tickets away to people who didn’t want them. sorry, no, im not waiting in that long line in the tight store full of dog bikinis.
as you can tell, it was more of a whine walk for us.

4 stars for the idea, 3 stars for the experience.
My boo and I arrived around 5PM. As we walked around, many places had run out of wine and/​or snacks. Some lines to get to wine weren’t organized, leading to chaos. Much of the «food» was crackers, cheese, tiny dry caprese sticks, and peanuts. You weren’t allowed to walk around with wine so once you got the wine you had to stay inside the store. It was a bit claustrophobic. Also, many of the wines they had you could buy from the grocery store.
The good… pretty much everything was off Marine Ave and there were balloons indicating which stores were participating so they were easy to find. My favorite drink was the Summertime hugo prosecco cocktail at Crush on Balboa — elderflower, sparking wine, lemon and fresh mint.

Pretty cool idea. Apparently, it was their first time having this event and it sold out. Cool idea. They are planning it again in November. Will be back for that.

We stood in line from 2:40 — 3:35 just to get the glass and wine tickets… I think the check in process was overlooked, the poor guy doing this was so overwhelmed, need AT LEAST three people doing the check in… The event was not for the wine expert as most of the wine was $ 10-​$ 15 … The best wine we had was the Wonderful ‘2013 Swanson Vineyards Sonoma Mountain Pinot Grigio’ and the best place we ate was ‘Barolo by the Sea’ that restaurant was exceptional, the owner/​chef was very personable, we plan to go back for anniversary dinner! Overall great event, big police presence, casual shopping atmosphere (we spent $ 40! Supporting local merchants) and friendly people. Four stars due to the long check in