Disclosure: I was invited out to experience Taste Our Terroir in Livermore! This is my story and experience. All opinions are my own.
Every July, the Livermore Wine Valley comes together to offer a fun event (Taste Our Terroir) focused around Food, Wine, and Fun showcasing all the offerings that their Livermore Wine Valley has to offer. The Main Event, which helps to open up the Weekend Festivities happens on Thursday Evening with their “Grand Tasting.”
Area Chefs/Restaurants come together to offer some of their best bites paired with some of their favorite wines within the region. Making it a fun night of food and wine, and it pretty much SELLS out every year!
The weekend events continue Friday through Sunday with fun seminars, lunches, and dinners at local wineries in the area. This past year’s events included: A fun Wine Blending Lunch paired with Pizza, Several Wine Tasting Seminars, and Saturday night held their first annual Progressive Wine Dinner.
The Progressive Wine Dinner included 3 stops at local area wineries. Between each stop, the Livermore Wine Trolley, which has been around for a little over a year, would transport us between each stop.
The night started off at Garre Vineyards and Winery at their new Restaurant location, Cafe Garre, at the top of the winery. The restaurant is open year round offering fresh California Cuisine with a Mediterranean influence. The best part: Homemade foccacia bread.
Many locals of the area were apart of the Progressive Dinner, and remininsced on when the Cafe use to be down on the grounds of the Vineyards, right next to the house. The first course at Cafe Garre included an appetizer along with a beautifully made salad:
The Second Stop along the journey included a nice family seating dinner at Les Chenes Estate Vineyards. The couple behind this winery, Richard and Candice, are very hospitable and make lovely hosts. Candice, sharing her homemade Chutney, which is also sold right on the property, along with a lovely dinner amongst the grapevines. The perfect dinner right in their backyard with Cordon Bleu with their own homemade Chutney spread atop:
And of course, a favorite part of the evening were the views:
The Golden Hour at the Les Chenes Estate Vineyards. Very beautiful especially right after dinner.
The Third Stop of the evening took us to Eagle Ridge Vineyards where we were unloaded the trolleys and stepped inside a Garage. Yes, a Garage. The Garage was filled with a variety of antiques. The owns of Eagle Ridge Vineyards kind of fell into winemaking, but their passion comes in creating Port Wines, which has become pretty popular in the Livermore Valley area.
This was our final destination of the evening, and also, the dessert round.
As Ports are known very well as a dessert wine, it only made sense that this is where we would end.
It was such a fun evening. As you went to each stop you’d sit by new people, converse, and by the end of the night, possibly walk away with new friends, or a memorable evening. The wineries really stepped up, and showed us an intimate view of their wines and their world. I’d highly recommend partaking next July.
Livermore Wine Valley has some fun annual events every year including Taste Our Terroir Every July
The next big event is: Holidays in the Vineyards: December 5 & 6: 12-4:30pm each day. A great way to shop for the holidays while enjoying the area wineries.
