San Rafael Wine Festival
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 8:30PM
The Cellar Rat in wine events

Readers: I have been very busy and I haven't had the opportunity to write since last week. I actually tried to write a little last night and fell asleep at my computer after typing half a sentence. I've noticed that I get about 5 people returning to check out the site everyday. If you're one of those people and you've been disappointed I want to apologize, thank you for reading, and let you know that I try my best to post at least every other day, so keep checking in! The good news is because I've been so busy I also have lots to share!

How about I start with a wine festival? On Saturday I travelled to my old stomping grounds to represent Deerfield at the annual San Rafael Wine Festival. It was a blast. The setting was what really made it a unique event. It took place on the grounds of this historic estate that has been turned into a museum. My aunt Sandra, head of sales, was my mentor. She's been to a great deal of these kind of events so it was wonderful to work with her and listen to how she talked about the wine and interacted with the patrons. It was really enjoyable talking with all of the people at the event and there wasn't too much of a crowd so I could have actual conversations. I surprised me how into wine everybody seemed to be. I thought people would want their taste and then get on to the next one. But nearly every person was extremely engaged and wanted to know as much about the wine as possible.

It was also a great event to cut my teeth on because there was no pressure to sell the wine. In fact, we weren't allowed to. The whole event is meant for the companies representing themselves to advertise. I thought the format of the event was genius: You pay for a wristband at the door and you're given a glass, then you can taste as much wine as you want and eat all of the food you want. That's right - free food. In addition to inviting wineries, the hosts of the event got all of the local gourmet restaurants to give away food. Nobody was stingy with their portions and there were more tasty tidbits around than I could hope for. A few delectibles: Quail with a orange demiglaze, bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almond, octopus ceviche, gourmet sweet potato french fries and the best gazpacho in this hemisphere. But my favorite food vendor was my neighbor! The first thing we did was have a food pairing. Our neighbor's delicious pulled pork nachos went excellently with our 2004 Shiraz Cuvee (although Sandra thought is went better with the Red Rex).

At any rate, I got to try some nice wines (I was careful not to try too many), meet some nice people, eat some good food, but the best part of the day by far was what I learned: It's great to work for a winery, but it's absolutely wonderful to work for a winery that makes wine that people love. Every person who tasted the wine had a little "wow" moment. More than once I was told that our wine was the best at the event. Even though I didn't make the it, I felt so proud that my family makes such outstanding wine. Lots and lots of people try to make wine. And they try their best. The fact that, after these people spent all day drinking wine, ours stood out to them is amazing to me. I think that it was well worth the wine invested. I expect that lots of those happy people will be returning for more!

Note: I know I've been promising more pictures for a long time but they're coming! I've already edited them all and they would be up right now but I'm having some technical issues. They WILL be there tomorrow. There's a lot of really great shots so check in tomorrow to see them!

Article originally appeared on Chronicles Of A Deerfield Cellar Rat (http://deerfieldcellarrat.com/).
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