Garagiste Wine Festival comes to Sonoma

The Garagiste Wine Festival will be held in Sonoma for the first time on Saturday, May 12.

The festival will showcase a variety of small-production wines currently being crafted by some of the most innovative winemakers in Sonoma, Mendocino, Livermore, Lodi and Napa, according to festival organizers. The nonprofit event will be held at the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building on First Street West.

Like many small production wineries, more than 90 percent of participating wineries are without a tasting room where they can meet the public, making the Sonoma Garagiste Festival a unique opportunity for consumers to discover and meet more than 40 winemakers while tasting more than 150 wines made from over 15 varieties. The festival has been dubbed a “wine-tasting Nirvana” by the LA Times.

The Sonoma Garagiste Festival will kick off at 11:30 a.m. on May 12, with a tasting seminar: “The Garagiste Variety Show: Exploring the Diversity of Small-Production Winemaking.” The seminar will focus on the range of wines being produced by Garagiste winemakers, and investigate why garagiste winemakers have stepped away from cabernet and chardonnay to work with grapes considered under-the-radar in Northern California. Panelists include Paul Gordon of Halcon Vineyards and Randy Hester of Lightning Wines. In the afternoon is the main event, the Grand Tasting, which runs from 2 to 5 p.m.

For the full schedule, visit garagistefestival.com.

Tickets are on sale ateventbrite.com/e/1st-annual-garagiste-festival-northern-exposure-tickets-43108506704.