Ah, another Vintners Festival arrived on a cold and windy day with overcast skies and no relief scheduled for the day! Did that slow down the crowds? Not so that anyone would really notice. As you can see from the above image taken about fifteen minutes before opening the line stretched as far as the eye could see and this doesn't include all the close up people. I'd guess it was sold out. And as last year, it was at River Park in Lompoc, a wonderful venue with ample parking on mostly flat ground (we didn't need the Silverado 4x4) and plenty of public transportation.

This year's logo painting, seen at the right is by Jill Targer from Santa Maria and is a nicely different watercolor.

This year I was working both for Casa Cassara Winery & Vineyard and the Chumash Casino Resort who had two food booths, one from The Willows at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez and the other from The Meadows at the Royal Scandinavian Inn in Solvang. Due to the graciousness of Casa Cassara my wife was able to come along. She knows all the Cassaras and the Krskas (Sarah is in kindergarten with Anna) and this is one of the few opportunities for her to visit with them.

It was pretty clear that this festival was a step up in some ways from all the previous ... there was enough food! Most years there have been long lines at every food booth and they have generally run out of food early. This year there were a potful of food vendors. In addition to the two Chumash enterprises, we were situated right next the The Brothers Restaurant so there was a constant supply of eats. Of course all the usual restaurants were represented such as the Hitching Post, The Wine Cottage Bistro, Santa Barbara Olive Company, Taco Roco, Roblar Cooking School, The Olive House, California Pizza Kitchen, Bare Bottom Truffles and lots, lots more! And with the flat ground, you could actually walk with a small plate without spilling anything.

 

Another thing that seemed to work well was the spacing of the booths with large lanes between the rows of tents. There wasn't any jostling trying to get from one booth to the next even with the hefty crowd. You could find the Porta-Potties easily and there were plenty of them. You could find the First Aid, the Wine Auction, the CHPs and all the orange hatted workers.

One thing I did notice was that a lot of the tasters at Casa Cassara were wearing Harley Davidson gear. Of course I also noticed that Dan Cassara, owner, was wearing the same dudds. And then the revelation that he was holding a little dinner event at the ranch and it all came together for me ... they had ridden up together!

 

For the first event in a long, long time we did not have Alicia at the booth pouring for us. While I didn't get a chance to check, I expect she was at the tasting room where there was a 15% discount for the weekend and driving by a couple of times on various errands there did seem to be lots of tasters. Alicia always had an elegant display for Casa Cassara.

We did have Dan & Bridgette Cassara, John Krska, Bennie Cassara all pouring so it wasn't like we were unmanned, but it wasn't the same. I, too, poured, but only for myself ... a bit of the Estate Pinot Noir and a taste of the Syrah. We were also pouring the Rose and Sauvignon Blanc. There was never a long line but always someone standing there tasting and talking, asking questions or getting reacquainted. It was a good event.

Well, that's about it! Three hours of fun, wine and food!

Written and photographed by Dwight McCann, friend of Casa Cassara.