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Vintage Festival and Flowery Salsa parties tonight; Gloria Ferrer 25th Anniversary; Ram's Gate Winery opens; and Café 522 opens, slowly; Muse next weekend

Flowery School celebrates its school garden, and life, with its annual Salsa Party tonight, Sept. 23, with the addition of family dinners of chicken, beans, rice and tortillas ($10) from nearby El Brinquito Market available, also will be beef tacos for $1. The whole fun event is free with multiple tastes of salsa and chips. 5 p.m. to dusk. 19600 Sonoma Highway on Depot Road at light near El Brinquito.

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Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival kicks off tonight with the fabulous music of Pride & Joy and loads of local wine and food behind Sonoma Barracks and its adjoining Casa Grande courtyard. Nearly 50 local wineries will pour generously, and sobering food samples will be provided by Artisan Bakers, Connoisseur Coffee, The Epicurean Connection, Murphy's Irish Pub, Rancho Viejo, Saddles Steakhouse, Sonoma Artisan Foie Gras, Sweet Rose Desserts and Wine Country Chocolates.

In the courtyard, you will find munchies from Homegrown Bagels, HopMonk Tavern, Mary's Pizza Shack, Maya, Michoacana Natural Ice Cream, Olde Sonoma Public House, Sonoma Cheese Factory, Studebaker Cheesecake, Swiss Hotel and Wild Bill's BBQ Catering ribs.

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Both José and Gloria Ferrer will be at their winery tomorrow, Sept. 24, to celebrate the establishment's 25th anniversary with a special dinner. $90. Call Colleen Patten at 933-1999 for last minute reservations.

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Fans of the Breakaway Café's organic, grass-fed Beltane burgers, who have been suffering withdrawals for the last three weeks, may return because owner Bob Rice has procured another dry-aged Beltane steer.

Rumor: Sonoma Market soon may sell fresh ground Beltane beef retail.

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Sonoma Community Center's annual "Muse" fundraiser raises its head next Friday, Sept. 30, at the old Nicholas Carriger ranch.

Muse event chair Suzanne Brangham reports that there are only a few seats left for this gold rush spectacular, with a couple of especially interesting auction lots. One includes a $1,000 gift certificate to stroll down historic First Street West with appetizers and drinks at EDK, shopping at newly-named "Business of the Year" Eraldi's and at Sonoma Home, and then dinner down the middle of Eraldi's catered by Harvest Moon Café.

Rocket Catering will provide dinner between guests' horseback riding, gold panning and performces by singers and fiddlers. Guests are supposed to wear denim, and be dripping in gold.

Another auction lot, which will draw high bids, is a progressive dinner on Carriger Road with appetizers at Stone Edge Farm, dinner prepared by Stone Edge culinary director John McReynolds at the home of Judy and Les Vadasz and dessert high atop Carriger Road at the western home of Sandy and Joan Weill.

Jean Arnold Sessions and Bob Smith will again serve as auctioneers, with generous sponsorships from Bill Jasper, Susan and Norm Goldstein, Gretchen and Bob Gardner, Marcie and Dave Waldron, Chuck and Judy Young, Phyllis and John Gurney, Linda and Jim Kuhns, Cathy Gellepis and Jim Ledwith, Jane and Kris Gallagher, Judy and George Weiner, Helen Fernandez, and Tom and Millie Ferrando. $188. 5:30 to 9 p.m. Valet parking. 18880 Carriger Road, Sonoma. 938-4626 or sonomacommunitycenter.org.

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Ram's Gate Winery has opened at the original Roche Winery location, as the southernmost winery in both the Carneros Region and Sonoma Valley.

Locals who travel southward and visitors to Infineon Raceway have all watched the removal of roses and fences (and just-built elegant split rail fence), the leveling of the Roche Winery building, designed by Sonoma architect Victor Conforti and the slow and careful construction of a super elegant new wine visitors' center. Never fear - the Roches now make wine on Adobe Road in Petaluma and host a highly successful tasting room and patio on West Spain Street next to the girl & the fig.

With Ned Hill as vineyard manager, Ram's Gate will primarily make small lots of pinot noir, chardonnay, syrah, cabernet sauvignon and sparkling wines priced from $25 to $75. Jeff O'Neill will run the winery with Saxon Brown owner Jeff Gaffner as winemaker. Hospitality veteran David Oliver will serve as general manager. Jason Rose, a former culinary director of the Tyler Florence Group and former executive sous chef at Carneros Inn, will be executive chef.

After tearing down the Roche building, designed to mirror the Roche's barn across Highway 12, architect Howard Backen designed a new building to look like a barn, and is now called "the barn." Watch for interesting food and wine events.

Investors in Carneros Vintners, LLC, which owns the winery, include Jeff O'Neill, Michael John, Peter Mullin and an old Berkeley City Club swimming teammate of mine, Paul Violich.

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Michael Muscardini and Ty Caton celebrate four years sharing a casual tasting room in Kenwood on Saturday, Sept. 24, featuring their great wines, "Mexican Delight" food by Sandy Caton and super special wine discounts. $20 public, free to wine club and up to two guests, more $15 each. 5 to 8 p.m. 8910 Sonoma Hwy., Kenwood. RSVP to 933-9305 or muscardiniwineclub@yahoo.com.

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Sheana Davis hosted a preview party for her Epicurean Connection's new downtown location, where Homegrown Bagels owner Stuart Teitelbaum marveled at his déjà vu experience, since that was his first bagel shop site. Stuart kept saying things such as, "you are standing in the oven."

Davis also told me, following the highly-successful Late Summer Farm Forum organized by Marcy Smothers and Clark Wolf at Estate Tuesday, that she purchased a Gravenstein apple tree for each of our public school gardens at last week's National Heirloom Festival.

John Toulze's food following the forum was fabulous, especially his trademark salumi. More on the forum next week.

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Audrey and Ron Chapman, movers in the Mission Olive Preservation group and generally generous donors, bid on silent auction items at the FFA fundraiser at Larson Family Winery without the other knowing. Audrey won the assorted meat pack of homegrown pork, lamb and goat, while Ron got the VinOlivo tickets that came with a case of assorted red wines. Audrey says, "I guess they will come in handy with our new kitchen in our new house."

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Deborah and Dr. John Emery threw a party at their new estate near Glen Ellen, hosted by their son "John Edward" and his girlfriend, for her father's ripe ol' five-oh birthday. As usual, a great bar, good food and interesting tours of the Emerys' new home, "a work in progress." We look forward to seeing future hangings of memorabilia from John's Olympic gold medal sledding days and Deborah's modeling and Mrs. United States careers.

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Chocolate shake-up:

Palms Grill has fought its way up to possibly the Best Chocolate Shake in Sonoma Valley. Ours, shared four ways, came in individual glasses, each with chocolate sauce dripping down the insides of the glasses, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top.

Palms replaces Fremont Diner for the top choc shake, partly because servers at Fremont have twice neglected to bring our change.

Now if we could just get some real fried chicken going in this town. Are we too elite, purist and healthy to enjoy an old fashioned American comfort food? Obviously not, since it sells out several times a day at Lucky, Safeway and Sonoma Market.

Who remembers the fried chicken at Aunt Bee's on Broadway or at Bunny's Country Kitchen in Kenwood? Although we did sort of chase KFC out of town with lack of business.

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Lisa Hemenway's Fresh restaurant and grocery on the way to Santa Rosa has added "sushi with integrity," from Chef Takeshi Uchida. 5755 Mountain Hawk Way, Santa Rosa.

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Sonoma State just named Ray Johnson (not Sonoma's Ray Johnson) as head of the university's Wine Business Institute. Most recently Johnson was assistant director of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Johnson earned his master's degree in wine business at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

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Larson Family Winery hosts its annual Harvest Hoedown on Saturday, Oct. 1, to celebrate the harvest and winemaking with vineyard tours that include the barrel room and bottling line with tasting. Enjoy a south-of-the-border barbecue, dancing to music by Tudo Bem, a caricaturist doing portraits, raffle with prizes and a jumpy house for the kids. Tickets include everything, including two glasses of wine. $40 adults, $30 wine club members, $15 "underage." Make reservations immediately via Lee Sweeney at 938-3031, ext. 18 or lee@larsonfamilywinery.com

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Crowd favorite: With loads of grazing both performance nights of Black Cat Cabaret, apparently everyone's favorite nibble was the turkey bacon BLT. Mine, too.

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Sonoma Home Winemakers hold their annual party, silent auction and fundraiser for Sonoma Valley High School Boosters, for arts and sports programs, on Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Swiss Hotel's back patio. Twenty-five home winemakers pour their finest wines and many prepare appetizers, nearly competing to create the best food as well as wine. $35. 3 to 6 p.m. 18 W. Spain St., Sonoma. Tickets at Sonoma Community Center.  Sonomahomewine.org or sonomacommunitycenter.org.

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Chef Vance Rose's next "pop-up dining" experience will be Saturday, Oct. 1, at Margie Tosch Brooke's Community Café. Among the delectable nine-course small plates will be a coconut milk, green curry tiger prawn, a potato cake with smoked sockeye salmon, summer berry soup, little neck clam soufflé, seared butterfish on fried green tomato, Sonoma lamb loin cube, Gleason Ranch beef tenderloin tails sous vide with truffled mac and cheese, Cashel blue cheese gougères and a Sonoma blackberry shortbread cobbler with lemon verbena ice cream. $125. 7 to 11 p.m. 875 W. Napa St., Sonoma. Make reservations at dujourdining.com or gusta.com.

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Sonoma Valley Grange puts on its "Not Your Usual Pancake Breakfast" on Sunday, Oct. 2, again loaded with organic wheat and corn pancakes ground that morning, free-range poultry sausage, veggie frittata with free-range eggs, fresh juice and organic coffees and tea. $10 adults. $5 children. 9 to 11 a.m. 18627 Sonoma Highway, Boyes Hot Springs. 935-1322.

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While their Monday class is full, a few spaces remain for The Depot Hotel Restaurant's Sardinian Family Dinner cooking class on Tuesday, Oct. 4, featuring traditional home kitchen recipes from real Sardinians. Learn to make (and eat) delicate scallops with garlic and breadcrumbs, gnocchi-like semolina pasta that test a Sardinian housewife's cooking skills, crispy roast pork with fennel and wild herbs, roasted eggplant and peppers and a delicate dessert of cheese-filled pastries quickly fried and topped with powdered sugar and a warm chestnut honey drizzle. $85 includes dinner, wines and recipes. 6:30 p.m. 241 First St. W., Sonoma. Reserve your spot with Gia Ghilarducci at 938-2980 or gia@depotsonoma.com.

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Café 522 (Broadway) opens slowly this week and next and will serve "comfort food" at breakfast, lunch and dinner in the space most recently occupied by Meritage, Shiso and Lokal. Hint: This may be the only restaurant anywhere that offers a "bacon flight" at breakfast.