We in the Bay Area live in the wine and food capitol of the country. In the past 10 years, varietal-specific and thematic wine festivals have flourished. Yet we have had to travel to Los Angeles or Oregon to experience the joys of pinot noir. Not so this year!

The Bay Area Wine Project announces Pinot Days, the first Bay Area wine festival dedicated to Pinot Noir. Pinot Days will celebrate pinot noir in its many styles, ranging from modern to earthy to elegant. Unlike wine events that appeal to a narrow customer base featuring wines more alike than different, Pinot Days will bring together pinot producers representing every California appellation, style and price point, as well as from Oregon and Burgundy. It is our sincere hope that Pinot Days will enable you to explore new producers, find wines you love and can afford, and become a pinot devotee if you are not one already.

This year, in our inaugural season, we will feature Saturday’s grand tasting, as well as a couple of more intimate events on Friday and Sunday. Each of the festival events will be educational, stimulating and fun. Our goal is to make each event accessible to everyone by keeping the costs reasonable and the attitude casual. Pinot Days will never become an elitist event affordable only to the rich, nor will it become an “insider” event accessible only to industry folks and pinot geeks like us. Rather, we invite insiders to come and enjoy, and we encourage those new to pinot noir – those of you who do not yet know the depth, breadth and sheer loveliness of our noblest grape – to come and taste for yourselves.

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EVENTS

Friday, June 24th, 6:30pm–9:00pm – The Best of Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Featuring The Pisoni, Garys' and Rosella's Vineyard. $80. Fort Mason Firehouse Room - San Francisco.

If you are not familiar with the Bay Area Wine Project’s tastings, a short synopsis: We conduct thematic tastings for relatively small groups (in this case, 80 attendees), featuring hard-to-find or costly wines in the pursuit of greater understanding of the chosen theme. Our events are informal and accessible to anyone, regardless of level of knowledge. Our focus is obviously the wine, as well as participants’ voluntary sharing of their impressions. In the end, our tastings are about having fun and enjoying wine with a group of people who take having fun and drinking wine seriously. In this case, our theme will be a tasting of three vintages, 2001-2003, from the Pisoni, Garys' and Rosella's vineyards. We will taste 15 wines in all along side the vineyard owners and winemakers. The wines offered will be:

• 2001 Tandem Pisoni Vineyard
  
• 2001 Ryan Pisoni Vineyard
  
• 2002 Pisoni Estate Pisoni Vineyard
  
• 2003 Siduri Winery Pisoni Vineyard
  
• 2003 Patz and Hall Pisoni Vineyard
  
• 2002 Capiaux Garys' Vineyard
  
• 2002 Testarossa Garys' Vineyard
  
• 2002 Lucia Garys' Vineyard
  
• 2003 ROAR Garys' Vineyard
  
• 2003 A.P. Vin Garys' Vineyard
  
• 2003 Morgan Rosella's Vineyard
  
• 2003 August West Rosella's Vineyard
  
• 2003 Vision Cellars Rosella's Vineyard
  
• 2003 Pelerin Rosella's Vineyard
  
• 2003 Loring Wine Company Rosella's Vineyard
  

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Saturday, June 25th, 10am–4pm - Pinot People Festival. $35. Fort Mason Herbst Pavilion - San Francisco.

This is an opportunity to taste pinots from California, Oregon and abroad from more than 70 of the best producers. The event, at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, will allow you to walk about the producers in a casual setting, seeking out the wines you wish to taste, speak to the winery owners and winemakers and broaden your appreciation of pinot noir. Also, within the facility, will be a demonstration of how pinot is produced from the vineyard to the bottle. Included in the demonstration will barrel samples of the 2004 vintage. During the festival, the Pinot Days Pinot Competition will be conducted. You will be able to watch and listen and five of the finest S.F. sommeliers discuss the merits and accomplishments of the wines being judged. You will also be able to watch the awards announcement of the best pinots by region, price and country.

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Sunday, June 26th, 11am-3pm - Pinot Producer Brunch. $50. Marin Country Club, Novato.

This is an chance to meet a number of the best pinot winemakers in a casual setting and discuss their craft and drink their wines. Brunch will be a full buffet at the Marin Country Club's newly constructed clubhouse. This tasting will give the pinot winemakers a chance to show you theri current pinots as well as other varieties they produce (pinot gris, chardonnay, gewurtztraminer, syrah, zinfandel).

To sign up for an event, you may go to our webpage and buy tickets via our secured server at: Pinot Days or you may call us at 415-883-7299.

If you have any questions, please email me at srigisich@pinotdays.com .

Regards,
Steven Rigisich

This sounds like a great event. I'm hoping to attend!

Will you be serving that new Pinot that helps older people with bladder problems? I think it's called "Pinot More"?



Sorry, I heard this one the other day and thought it fit in well here...

Cheers,

-DRAB

I would be interested in what Pinots will be served on June 26th in Novato. I didn't see that information on your website. I will be living in Novato by then. Yea!

-Brettay

Brettay,

We still have not finalized the producers who will be pouring on Sunday but it looks like it will be 5 from the following list:

Kosta Browne
Vision Cellars
Hitching Post
Keller Estates
Inman Family
Paraiso Vineyards
Arcadian

Also, I live in Novato. If you need a tour and/or some background, call me at 415-883-7299. I lived in New York City until 2001 so I'd be happy to help in the transition.

Regards,
Steve

Steve,

Thanks for the info and thanks for the offer to help with my transition. That's really kind of you. Actually, my wife grew up in Novato. She has lived on the East Coast for the past 9 years, much to her dismay, and is thrilled to get back to the left coast. I on the other hand am a California newbee, but can't wait to be in a state which doesn't have a major hangup with shipping wine.

-Brett

We have just completed the registration of wineries and have over 70 committed. We are very pleased with the diversity and depth of those who have chosen to pour. Click here to view the particpating wineries and distributors: Pinot Days Exhibitors.

Regards,
Steve

We have closed the exhibitor’s registration for the Saturday Grand Tasting and we are happy (and quite shocked) to announce there will be a total of 116 wineries represented at the festival. There will be 97 wineries representing California from every appellation in our state, 7 from Oregon, 1 from Chile and 11 from Burgundy. To see all of the participants, click here: Pinot Days Wineries and Exhibitors.

Many of the producers will be pouring 2004-barrel samples, providing us with a good chance to get an idea about the vintage before they are soon released. Also, we have over 50 bottles of pinot, mostly magnums that will be available for auction due to the incredible generosity of the wineries.

Also present will be a number of specialty food providers and pinot noir related products.

We anticipate attendance to be around 1,000, which for the number of wineries and size of the hall, should mean for an intimate, casual opportunity for all to enjoy the wines without being trampled.

For $35, this seems to good to be true.

I hope you attend. To sign up, visit the website at
Pinot Days Home Page or call us at 415-883-7299.

Regards,
Steve