Tonight: Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival Gives Drinkers, Eaters An Early Sample with Bubbles and Boots

After so many months of crude summer drinking—$1 beers, jello shots, that new canned champagne at Whole Foods—the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival swoops in just in time to give Austinites a quick shot of taste. Bubbles and Boots, a preview event for the famed Wine & Food Fest, will be held tonight at Kodosky Lounge at the Long Center from 6 to 8 p.m., and while our taste buds may have been dumbed down from far too many cheap mixes and various alcohol-laced popsicles, our eyes still know a quality lineup when we see one.

With more than 10 sparkling wines on-hand, reds and whites for good measure, and food tastings from local wine-happy restaurants—think Max's Wine Dive—Bubbles and Boots aims to give Austinites a taste of the 2010 wine and food festivities to come. Next year actually marks the 25th year anniversary for the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, and with a past speaker roster that includes culinary rockstars like Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck, you know these people take ingestibles seriously.

At Bubbles and Boots, guests will meet Driskill Grill alum Josh Watkins, now executive chef at The University of Texas at Austin’s AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. Wait a second—conference-goers eat? Indeed, and extremely well too. It's no surprise, given that their young chef phenom has already appeared on “Iron Chef America.” Well done, Master Watkins. Tickets to Bubbles and Boots are $40, and can be purchased via texaswineandfood.org. For more information, just call 512.249.6300 or email info@texaswineandfood.org.

Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival has graciously offered two free passes to Bubbles and Boots for a lucky reader. Fill out the form after the jump, and we'll pick a winner this afternoon.