Hello to all of our Wine Road wineries –

We have created a new event for Wine Road – Esprit du Rhône, which will take place Friday May 18 and Saturday May 19.

There are two options for participation:

Friday May 18 – 6:00-8:00pm
If you only produce 1-2 Rhone varietals, you could pour at our “walk around tasting”, which takes place Friday May 18th from 6:00-8:00pm at Sonoma Cider.
This will be a casual setting for folks to taste wines, enjoy some appetizers and meet winemakers. They can stay later for dinner, play some games etc.
Our goal is to sell a minimum of 50 tickets, max of 100.
Friday is limited to 20 wineries – sharing 2 wineries per table

Saturday May 19 – 11:00-4:00pm
If you produce 3 or more Rhone varietals, then participate on Saturday. We are promoting this much like our other events. Guests will go from winery to winery between 11:00am-4:00pm. We will be clear in our promotion that this is not a food event, guests should pack a picnic. This is an opportunity to explore Rhone varietals which many guests are not familiar with. To be listed in the program, you must pour a minimum of 3 Rhones for a ticket holder.
There is no reimbursement for participation.
There is no special event health permit required.
Our goal is to sell 500 tickets for Saturday. You may see 10 event attendees, you may see 50, but no one is going to be overrun with event participants.
You can easily still serve your regular visitors, but the Event Attendees need to feel like they are getting an education in Rhone varietals. If you want to provide something else, you will have the option to include that information in the printed and online program.
A winery may only participate in one or the other – Friday OR Saturday.

Tickets are $40 Friday only, $50 Saturday only, $75 for both (Taxes and fees to be added at checkout).
Tickets will be available for purchase during the event via Eventbrite. Wineries do not need to sell tickets at the door. Customers may go online through that Saturday.

If you are interested in participating, the sign up is online via Eventbrite HERE
The password is Rhone

The deadline is Feb. 15

We will be promoting this with a Rhone seminar at the Rancho Mirage Wine Festival, VinDiego and at the San Mateo Travel Show. We have postcards and posters to hand out during Barrel Tasting weekend. The event is now live on our website, HERE. It will of course be promoted via social media, an ad in Sonoma Magazine in April and on bay area radio stations. Participating wineries will also be required to SHARE on social media at least once – we will provide you with the artwork and some text. An email invitation will go out to our mailing list in April.