Food and Wines Musts?

Best advice is to grab the passport they give out and read through and see what food you like that each country has and go there.  My personal favorites are Argentina and Belgium for the waffles.

Just back from my first experience at the International Food & Wine Festival. My favorite "countries": Puerto Rico (loved the tostones), Brazil, Germany, and Mexico (try the sweet corn cheesecake). I wrote more about my experience here: http://allthingsfadra.com/2014/09/all-the-reasons-to-visit-walt-disney-world-in-september/

As for year-round restaurants, the best restaurants are in the hotels: Jiko - The Cooking Place at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (as well as Boma - Flavors of Africa) and California Grill Lounge at Disney's Contemporary Resort. Enjoy!

The first thing you do when entering Epcot is go to Guest Services.  Pick up the Food & Wine Passport book, this is free.  The passport will have each country listed and what food/drinks they are featuring.  You can have your passport book stamped as you purchase something at a particular country and you can also check off what you had and note if you liked it or not.  To be honest, we attended with our son a few years back and I believe we tasted a little something at every country, sharing of course.

As for year-round restaurants, we have been going to Disney since 1991. At Epcot we enjoy Garden Grill Restaurant (located in The Land) and also Biergarten Restaurant.  They have a great floor show, you may/may not share a table with another party ... depending on the size of yours.  Great place to meet new people.  If you are just looking to take a break from the Epcot Park, take a walk over to the Boardwalk - Yacht/Beach Club area.  There is a great variety of restaurants there as well.  Hope this helps.