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Wine Road, a destination marketing association of wineries and lodgings in Northern Sonoma County, invites visitors to Wine Country to experience a weekend tasting discovering library wines at participating wineries, March 6 and 7. Along with hard-to-find wines, visitors can enjoy all Sonoma County has to offer: gorgeous scenery, amazing weather and world class food and wine.

Traditionally the first weekend of March is Wine Road’s annual Barrel Tasting weekend. This year because Sonoma County COVID-19 regulations will not allow visitors to gather in the cellars for barrel samples, Wine Road wineries are offering visitors a unique opportunity to meet winemakers and winery owners and taste their favorite wines, pulled from their library. Library wines are portions of vintages held back by wineries to re-released years after their debut.

“The safety of our guests is our number one priority. Realistically, due to statewide COVID19 restrictions, we will not be able to have large groups of people indoors by the first weekend of March to hold our annual Barrel Tasting event,” says Beth Costa, Executive Director of Wine Road. “However, we still wanted to commemorate the weekend that has been a 44-year tradition in Sonoma County by having our member wineries unite to offer visitors something special – in this case – rare library wines.”

This is NOT an event, as there are no tickets, wristbands, or logo glasses, but each winery will require a reservation in advance, and they will each charge their regular tasing fee. All safety protocols required of wineries will be in place at each winery: outdoor seating, social distancing, and masks required until seated. The only difference will be that wineries will serve a library wine with a flight of current wines.

Click on the program link at the Wine Road website to see a list of participating wineries, which currently include favorites such as Moshin Vineyards, Dutton Estate, GC Lurton Vineyards, Baldassari Wines, West Wines and Balletto Vineyards. (Winery list will be complete by February 22nd).  Wine Road hopes to be able to host a scaled down, modified version of their annual Barrel Tasting event in May of 2021 if conditions allow.