18 Wineries, One Weekend, Memories For A Lifetime
Santa Clara Valley Passport Weekend 2013
Howdy folks! Ranger Roy here with some exciting news for you! Did you know that the first weekend in October is the Santa Clara Valley Passport Weekend? That’s right. It’s that time of year again when some of the best wineries in Santa Clara County invite you to spend a whole weekend sipping wine, listening to music, talkin’ food parings, and a bunch more. Tickets are only $30 per person and this year there are 18 wineries on the list.
I hopped on over to the Gilroy Welcome Center a few days ago and bought two passports; one for me and one for my good friend Bill from Hollister. Bill is a self-proclaimed wine aficionado and he said he’d show me the “right way” to taste wine. I didn’t know there was a wrong way to drink a glass of wine – unless it was that wine made by Bill and his wife, Sally, in their hay barn in the nineties.
Bill and Sally used to make their own homemade wine from the wild grapes that grew out in the back horse pasture. He called this special juice Wild Bill’s Kickin’ Grape. I don’t know about you, but one sip made your hair curl and your lips pucker. The only right way to drink that stuff was with a lot of beer to wash it down. Of course there’s nothing like that at the Passport wineries (thankfully!). No sir! Only fantastic award winning wines from premium growers. Now the only decision I have to make is where to start!
Well folks I gotta run. I’ve some planning to do if I want to make it around to all 18 wineries in two days. Sally said she’d cook up a batch of garlic chicken with garlic bread to finish off the day. Garlic and wine…it’s going to be a great weekend! Until next time folks this is Ranger Roy wishing you safe travels and reminding you to eat lots of garlic.
Participating wineries include our previously featured Casa De Fruta Winery, Satori Cellars, and Fortino Winery from our Santa Clara Valley Wines series! Make sure to stay with us this coming Passport Weekend, to make sure that the shopping, adventure, food, and fun never end!
Written by local writer and photographer Laura Wrede