Best in Show at July’s CHEERS! St. Helena

This month’s 1st Friday event in St. Helena proved to be a bigger hoot than the last, an unlikely and welcome surprise. Like good wine, it is possible for things to get better over time and to receive more of a good thing than bargained for. July brought more crowds,music, food, a closed off Main Street strip, tastings galore, and let’s not forget the frolic! Three months into a brilliant experiment the event is gaining traction and continuing to offer up a rollicking good time (all “economic strife” conversations tabled for the night thank god). The event was peppered with locals and tourists alike reminding us that cross pollination need not always to be a bad thing. Most store fronts were open, taco and food trucks roamed the sidelines as did small bites and street meat, and did we mention more wine? The diamond in a haystack this month was HayFork vineyard. Their first vintage (2008 Cab) was poured and proved to be a sip worth tasting. As a pint sized family vineyard (90 bottles) where husband Erik grows the grapes and wife Haley is the wine maker, it’s a pairing made in wine heaven offering up a smooth and succulent wine poured by a dynamic duo. Make a pit stop at their St. Helena wine pad (707-227-4438). Small families were in the house once again as Chase Family Cellars poured an assortment of wines, my favorite being their Hayne Vineyard Zinfindel. I was dangerously close to crying over its smooth sensation, but I sucked it up because the night was still young. Be sure to hit them up for their full troth of wines (not a bad one in the lot) and a jolly good time at their annual JulyFest party on the 18th of this month. I fell in love with Orin Swift cellars during my last swing around the June CHEERS! maypole, so I had to hit them up once again to see if their Prisoner Red wine was as good as I remembered (it was), but their stand out this month was the Papillon Red which blends cab, cab franc, petite verdot and malbec. As I tasted it, the best description that came to mind was a feeling of lying in bed smashed between a mixed berry pie (rhubarb, strawberry, et all!) comforter and a toasted campfire canopy, in a word: divine-wine- bliss. And last but not least of my plucky picks is the Behrens Family winery. Their 2007 Sainte Fumée was as tasty inside as the packaging on the outside, the wine was deep, fruity and fun, as was the cheeky/arty label which was what first drew me in. Next CHEERS! is August 7th, so if you know what’s good for your social calendar tack this pup to your date book. Wacky WineSense event rating: 5 grapes (again!)