San Francisco Fall Vintners Market: November 20-21, San Francisco

Sometimes you hear an idea and wonder to yourself, exactly why it's taken someone so long to come up with it. And the really good ones make you think, "now why didn't I come up with that?"

That's exactly what I thought to myself when I first heard about the San Francisco Vintners Market last year. It's a farmer's market, but for wine. Simple as that. Walk around, taste a bunch of wines, and buy the ones that you like. So incredibly straightforward it took years for someone to come up with the idea.

The first version was held in April, and it was enough of a success for the organizers to do it again. This version is a little smaller, and unfortunately a little more expensive than the first go-round, but it's likely to still be a good chance to taste a lot of wines from smaller producers that fly below the radar.

Think of it as a tasting room that you don't have to drive to. Or a big wine tasting you can go to and finally not have to worry about finding some retailer somewhere that carries the wines that you fell in love with at the tasting.

About sixty wineries will be pouring and selling their wares from all over California, including some of my personal favorite wineries in the state.

San Francisco Fall Vintners Market
Saturday and Sunday November 20th & 21st
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA

Tickets are $40 if purchased in advance (prices go up at the door). You can also purchase a VIP ticket for $80 and get access to a room of $50+ wines.

Posted by: Alder on October 16, 2010 3:01 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Wine Activities

Previous Entry - Main - Next Entry

Comments (4)

Rick wrote:

10.16.10 at 10:36 PM

How are these wineries allowed to sell directly to the public away from their places of business? This seems to violate the three tier system somehow.

Cornelius Geary wrote:

10.17.10 at 9:47 PM

Hi Alder - Thanks for the plug. We actually have a bunch more wineries coming in for Fall, harvest is a little late so they have been coming in as they figure out their schedules. We expect to be around the 150 mark we had at our April event. As for more expensive, you can get in for $40 bucks, not sure if there is a cheaper event out there.

Our wineries sold around $500,000 worth of wine at the April event so this is a great opportunity for smaller wineries to move some wine.

As for Rick, we have been cleared and permitted to hold this type of event and are in total legal compliance and so are our wineries.

Thanks!

jason Carey DWS wrote:

10.23.10 at 8:00 PM

You know Paris has a much much larger one like this called the Salle des Vignerons Indepenants, and its much cheaper to get in.. It is amazing in a huge place on the outskirts. People show up with handcarts and buy cases.. Its too bad this one is so expensive.. because it would be a lot more fun it it was a bit more egalitarian(I know a blasphemy in this country).
http://www.vigneron-independant.com/auxsalons/

jason Carey DWS wrote:

10.23.10 at 8:04 PM

look at the producer list... this is what we need here from all the Ca, OR and WA wineries..

http://www.vigneron-independant.com/auxsalons/images/lyon_2010-10/exposants.pdf