Vintage Festival

Sonoma is wine (lots of it) and history (the founding of the 25-day-long California Bear Republic). Both are celebrated exuberantly throughout the Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival.  I'll be flying down to the Bay Area on Thursday for Sonoma's 115th celebration of the Festival.

My sister, despite growing up like the rest of us with strong roots in the timber and fish resources of the Northwest Corner, long ago abandoned the Fatherland for the wine-based culture of the Sonoma Valley.  As a result, much of my family, and their friends, now live in and about Sonoma.  My annual presence at the Festival is almost (but not quite) a given.  In any event, this year I'll be there.

The Vintage Festival dates back to 1896, as a celebration by local vintners of science's triumph over the phylloxera louse which had devastated grape crops for several decades.  According to a past issue of the local newspaper (Sonoma Index-Tribune):

To organize the celebration they created what they called The Bacchus Club of Rhinefarm, in honor of the Greek god of wine. Imaginative, witty and fun-loving clans (as their descendants still are), they wrote skits, composed humorous songs, designed costumes and practiced lively dances in preparation for the festival which was scheduled for Oct. 16, 1896.

The festival was Greek and Bacchanalian in many respects, with pageants, singing (drinking songs, naturally), "faux-Greek drama," and a re-enactment of "Sonoma's greatest social event" ever, the double wedding of the two daughters of General Vallejo in 1863.

The Festival remains a small town event, although perhaps less bizarrely unique in 2012, more sophisticated, and attracting far more visitors from San Francisco.  It can also be more expensive for the unwary visitor. 

The spiritual high point of the weekend is the blessing of the grapes in front of Mission San Francisco Solano.  The profit-oriented high point is the Friday night wine tasting.  More energetic events are the Firefighters' Water Fight, the Grape Stomp, and the picturesque 5k run through the vineyards, starting out at the Sebastiani winery.  And, of course, the Festival parade. 

I've attended this event for years, and somehow have never grown tired of it.  It's of course an excuse to get together with relatives, but it's also fun to join in the Festival's seldom varying traditions, watch the locals, observe with bemusement the tourists -- and sample a lot of wine.  It's a big event, supported by a major industry, but still never loses it's small town feel. 

I'm again looking forward to it.