Vermont only gives us so many good-weather weekends, and this week's calendar makes it clear that it takes planning to spend them wisely. Wine festivals, a brewers' fest, music festivals, block parties, food tastings…all within about five days. Somewhere out there, a Vermonter is standing in a parking lot with a half-eaten creemee, trying to figure out how to be in three places on Saturday at noon.

We're not judging. We're doing the same thing.

Some of the best friendships start with an unlikely setup.

Maybe you work remotely and you miss the easy, unplanned way you used to meet people at the office. Or you moved to Burlington in the last few years and are still figuring out how to find your crew. Maybe you're part of a couple whose social circle has settled into the same familiar faces.

This is precisely why we started the Champlain Dinner Club.

Here's how it works. You take a quiz, you get matched with five people you've never met, and we book the restaurant. You find out where you're going that morning.

And if flying solo just isn't your thing, you can bring a friend or your partner…sign up together, and we'll seat you at the same table with four new people to meet.

The fourth edition is coming to Winooski on Wednesday, July 22, and the matches are already coming together. If any of this sounds like something you’d enjoy, this is your moment…take the quiz, get matched, show up and see what happens.

We've also been listening to where you want CDC to go next. Waterbury and St. Albans keep coming up, so we're thinking through what CDC could look like outside the greater Burlington area. More on that soon.

See you there!

We've written an awful lot these past few months about Vermont businesses winning food and beverage awards. This time it's cheese, and the story sounds familiar: another national list with another round of Vermont names on it.

On July 8, the American Cheese Society announced the winners of the ACS Industry Awards — widely regarded as the top cheese competition in North America — at their 43rd annual conference in Louisville. Vermont cheesemakers walked away with 54 awards, a record for the state, with every single Vermont entrant taking home at least one. Jasper Hill's Winnimere took Best in Show, the top prize across the entire competition. See the full list of winners here.

And while we're on the subject of Vermont cheese getting noticed: culture magazine, the country’s leading magazine devoted to cheese, named two Vermont honorees to its 2026 Hot List: Woodlawn Creamery's Leslie Tyminski, Kate Leach, and Seth Leach for regenerative farming and cheesemaking, and 5th Quarter's Josh Turka, recently on hand at the festival, for his whole-animal butchery work.

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Ask anyone who’s been in Burlington since before smartphones, and they'll probably have a Kountry Kart Deli story that happened around 2 a.m…often with a Shiner as the last stop of a night out. For decades, the deli opened at 6:30 a.m. and didn't close until 3 a.m….an absurd number of hours to keep a sandwich counter running. COVID and the staffing crunch that followed put an end to that. Now the late nights are creeping back: on Fridays and Saturdays, the deli will reopen at 10 p.m. and run until 3 a.m…meaning the 2 a.m. Shiner run is, once again, an option on the table.

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For years, Vermont has known Boyden Valley for its wines and its Vermont Ice spirits. Now, they're adding whiskey to the lineup…and not the easy way. In September, the Cambridge winery will roll out its Bourbon Farm estate whiskey as Vermont's only member of the Estate Whiskey Alliance, meaning every grain in the mash is grown, milled, distilled, and aged on their own Champlain Valley farm rather than sourced elsewhere. Their distillery build-out is in progress, and you can sign up to be notified when the new whiskey released.

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If you've ever wondered what a chef notices when they walk through a farmers market, here's your chance to find out. Three local chefs are leading one-hour tours of the Stowe Farmers Market, sharing how they shop, what they look for, and the seasonal ingredients that inspire their cooking. You'll meet vendors, ask questions, and head home with recipe cards inspired by the day's finds. Ryan Aldrich of City Roots VT in Stowe kicks things off July 26, with subsequent sessions featuring Suzanne Podhaizer and Megan Chacosky.

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And this one's not food or wine related, but it's worth a mention: congratulations to KeyBank, our Presenting Sponsor of the Burlington Wine & Food Festival for the better part of a dozen years now, on being named to The Civic 50 for the thirteenth consecutive year…one of just 50 companies awarded nationwide for community investment and volunteerism. They're a big deal to us, and it's nice to see when the rest of the country notices, too.

Read the full interview, including which Leunig's staples aren't going anywhere, the new bar for regulars who don’t go downtown, and her advice for the next owner of Leunig's…many years from now.

The next ten days don't leave much room to sit still.

Four separate food-and-drink festivals converge on the state this same weekend, plus one all-out celebration of dogs and rosé at Shelburne Vineyard. Main Street is finally back open after months of construction, and Burlington's celebrating with a two-day block party. There’s also a Rhône tasting downtown, a bead workshop with wine, the return of fried chicken nights in Richmond…and lots more, trust us!

In closing…