Way back when hundreds or even thousands of us all gathered fecklessly in enclosed spaces without masks, pressing the flesh and cavalierly spitting liquids into big pails, there were a couple of wine-tasting events that were could-not-miss affairs for me in San Francisco.

One of them was the annual Family Winemakers tasting. Fifteen years ago, this was one of the few public wine tastings where you could find small, artisan producers who made only a couple thousand cases of wine a year pouring their wares for the public.

The tasting used to feature more than 100 different producers, and at one point it proudly boasted of being the single largest public tasting of California wines in the world.

These days, the luster has come off of this tasting a bit. It is no longer the place where you can find most of the up-and-coming small wineries in California. But the organization still counts among its membership some really excellent wineries, and 60 of them are going to be pouring their wines on August 21st in Oakland.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating in this context again: such public tastings are one of the single best ways that wine lovers can educate their palates, not to mention discover new wines and wineries to love and patronize.

So if you want to spend a nice afternoon doing such things on Sunday, August 21st, I highly recommend it.

If you’re interested in the list of participating wineries, it can be found here.

2022 Family Winemakers Tasting
August 21, 2022
12:00 PM – 4:00 PM
BLOC15 Event Center
252 2nd Street
Jack London District
Oakland, CA 94607 (map)

Tickets can and should be purchased in advance online. My usual tips for such tastings apply: get a good night’s sleep, go with food in your belly, wear dark clothes, leave the perfume/cologne off for the day, and spit your wine if you want to learn anything (or even remember the experience).