The Mrs and I traveled to Napa this past weekend to participate in Reynolds Family Winery's 10th Anniversary Harvest Celebration. An event that I had looked forward to for several weeks ended up being one huge disappointment.

The reasons for my poor experience were many but they can be boiled down to the following three.

First the weather turned pretty cold (temps around 50F) and of the eight gas-fired heaters brought in only two worked. Many of the 100 or so attendees spent the night shivering in the cold while others were inside the winery keeping warm.

Second, as attendees worked their way through the buffet line the hosts ran out of both of the two main entrees, leaving roughly 20 of us without a main dish. It's hard to imagine that for $75 a person my wife and I had a dinner consisting of nothing more than cold tomatoes and grilled potatoes, all while others dined on prime rib and grilled chicken.

Finally, even when things were going terribly wrong the winery continued to pour only single ounce portions of their wine to the party-goers. Believe me, after sitting for two hours in the cold with little to eat the least they could have done was provide us with decent portions of a nice Cab. But they didn't and now they'll likely lose me as a club member.

I don't want to judge all of the wineries in Napa on this lone miserable experience so I would like to hear from others who've attended these events if you've had better experiences?

So it seems no one other than me has evern gone to a harvest event.

The only harvest event I've ever been to is Stefania's. More wine than you can drink, more food than you can eat and great company.

The only winery event I've been to like the one you describe was a valentine's sit-down dinner at Mumm. It's always difficult catering for a large number of people so I wasn't surprised when the food was only average The wine pours were fairly limited; one glass per course; you had to wait for them to come to you. There was music and dancing, but it finished at 10PM before we even got started. We took a taxi and stayed the night in Napa, but frankly I could probably have driven home.

The good part was that we sat on the same table as the (rather attractive) assistant winemaker and got to talk wine geekery through dinner.

I've made a point of avoiding wineries at harvest time.

Sounds like a big mistake in planning on Reynold's part. Mistakes do happen and events don't always go as the winery hoped.

I'm sure they didn't intend to provide a poor or even mediocre experience for their guests. Every winery knows, or should know, that it is with their most loyal customers where they should be putting their biggest efforts.

Did you have the chance to bring this up with someone in authority at Reynolds before posting this? I hope so. But even if not, you should contact them and give them a chance to make it up to you.

Presently at Harvest in Paso, Villa Creek Dinner Party on Friday good food n wine and plenty of it too. Linne Calodo BBQ yesterday ( second year in a row ), music, vertical pourings and lots o food. Weather has been great great up here as well.

I guess it is the roll of the dice on these events. Usually it is hard to please all at the bigger events, but poor planning is no excuse just a recipe for a poor result.