By Kelly Garrett
This story first appeared in Vine Times magazine.

If it seems like you spend more time choosing your wines than drinking them, you probably do. But why shouldn't you? After all, a sense of ongoing quest is part and parcel of the pleasure of oenophilia.

Besides, with so much wine and so little time (and for most of us mere mortals, so little disposable income), you want to make good decisions about your purchases. A little time dedicated to research before pulling the trigger is how you minimize the disappointments.

Sure, you're still going to buy a lot of bottles on whim alone. That's part of the fun. But it usually makes sense to select your wines as you'd select your spouse-by knowing something about what you're getting yourself into. In both cases, it's a good idea to be aware of things like age, complexity, origin and compatibility. And a little taste before buying doesn't hurt, either.

In the best of all worlds (and now we're talking about wine only), you'd get your information and your pre-tasting at the same time. That way the information would be immediately relevant, and the tasting would take place in a meaningful context.

That's not an easy parlay to make. But a legendary restaurant in Santa Cruz County has come up with a way for folks to simultaneously sample wines and chat about them with the most impeccable of sources-the winemaker himself. It's called Winemaker Wednesdays, and it happens weekly at the Shadowbrook, the venerable creekside restaurant in Capitola.

in and out for ten bucks
On a typical Winemaker Wednesday, you'll sample four wines, but it's not a formal wine tasting. You can combine your sipping with dining if you wish, but it's not a winemaker's dinner. You can learn as much about the wine as you can absorb in an evening, but it's not a class or lecture. You do all this in the most gorgeous of surroundings possible, but the event is nothing if not casual.And you can get in and out for ten bucks.

The Shadowbrook has been around since 1947 and has a long track record of promoting community-oriented events and boosting the local wine industry. Winemaker Wednesdays do both. They also merit the legitimate use of one of the most misused (and over-used) adjective in the English language–"unique." That's because nobody else does it (though many soon will, no doubt).

Here's how it works: With the help of the Santa Cruz Mountain Winegrowers Association, the Shadowbrook arranges for a winemaker from one of the 47 (at last count) wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation to be on hand, bringing with him a generous supply of three or four of his winery's products. Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., he'll be pouring flights that you can buy for $10. What you get for that is about a half glass each of four (sometimes three) wines and a plate of (good) hors d'oeuvres.

But of course, you get something else-namely, face time with the maestro himself. In this case, as you talk wine with the person who made it, you don't feel like you've been granted an audience with the Pope. Winemakers are famously congenial, and as you chat at the makeshift table set up in the lounge area, it's a lot more like striking up a converstaion with a really interesting guy at a party. What's more, it's a guy who knows what he's talking about.

The looseness of the set-up and the low-key, convivial atmosphere are what distinguishes the Shadowbrook's Winemaker Wednesday's from more formal wine events. That's pretty much the idea, says Shadowbrook co-owner Ted Burke.

"We don't want people to feel intimidated with their wine experience," Burke says. "The winemaker's here as a resource, but there's nothing mandatory about it. Some people want to know more about the winery, how the wines were made and where the grapes come from. Others just want to try the wine without getting involved in any conversation, especially a technical one."

It's not that the Shadowbrook is averse to winemaker dinners. In fact, it's hosted its share and will continue to do so. But Burke recognizes that they're not for everybody. For one thing, the dinners are unavoidably pricey. For another, they're not something you're going to indulge in every week, as you can with the Shadowbrook's Wednesday night flights. Also, winemaker dinners are somewhat formatted, which is a turnoff to the more free-spirited wine lover.

people can just drop in
"For some people, a winemaker dinner is something to suffer through," Burke says. "Others, like myself, find them interesting ways to grow in our knowledge. But a more casual wine drinker, or a novice wine drinker, may not feel comfortable. With our Winemaker Wednesdays, everything is optional, so people can just drop in, try the wine, and enjoy themselves."

Not that food can't be part of your evening. After all, you're doing your wine tasting right around dinner time at an award-winning dining establishment. You can eat a little or a lot, but the discounts on the featured wines of the evening follow you around. Whether you order by-the-glass or full bottle, you pay half price.

That leaves you with an appealing array of avenues for exploring your Wednesday night wine. If you want to stick around and have something more substantial than the complimentary hors-d'oeuvres-but less than a full dinner-there's a wood-burning oven in the same lounge where the flights are served. The light entrees it produces are worthy companions for the wine you're getting to know.

What lots of folks do, though, is choose a winner or two from their four-wine flight testing and order those bottles with their dinner in one of the dining rooms. Not only does that strategy provide an opportunity to test the wine's performance with a meal, it also provides you with an end-run around the typical restaurant mark-up, since the 50-percent discount applies.

"And then you can take a bottle or bottles home with you to enjoy at another time or to give to friends," Burke says. "It's surprising how many people buy bottles to go after their meal. That's usually not the case at restaurants, given the mark-up, but it works with this promotion because of the generous discount. You actually pay less than wine store prices, since our mark-up is never more than twice retail anyway, and the wineries usually offered a discount to us to start with."

So what Winemaker Wednesdays can end up being is a total immersion experience of one winery's featured selections. You spend a few hours on a Wednesday night sampling that wine, talking about it with the winemaker, and drinking it with dinner. By the end of the evening, you've made a liquid friend.

The Wednesday night promotion at the Shadowbrook is a win-win-win proposition. You get a good deal, the restaurant gets a boost on a traditionally slow night, and the winery gets exposure. And it's a way of firming up the relationship between local wineries and a local restaurant, which isn't always easy to do when both depend on market share from outside the area.

something like a taxi squad
The Shadowbrook's wine list is diverse, but it's also strong on the Central Coast and strong on the Santa Cruz Mountains. Still, only a small percentage can make the team. So another function of Winemaker Wednesdays is to create something like a taxi squad for local wines that aren't on the roster. Some get called up as a result of the buzz (so to speak) created by their Wednesday night performance. But even those that don't make it at least get into the game.

"I've been frustrated in the past because it's a physical impossibility to have every local winery represented on our wine list," Burke says. "There's only so much space to put the bottles. It just kind of came to me one day to create a way for more wineries in the area to be represented without a fulltime position on the wine list. At the same time, I wanted to do something that would excite customers, whether they're local or from out of town. That was the genesis of Winemaker Wednesdays."

One last thing you should know about Winemaker Wednesdays is that they don't take place at just any old venue. The Shadowbrook is known as much for its verdant, rustic beauty as for its cuisine, and it's a reputation that's confirmed before you get anywhere near the door. Unless you take advantage of the picturesque "cable car" to take you down (and later up) the steep hillside above Soquel Creek, you'll make your way down fern-lined paths and stairways, through fountains and gardens, before reaching the restaurant itself.

The Rock Room Lounge where the Wednesday night pourings take place is a high-ceilinged study in wood, with a warm ambience ideal for losing yourself in fine wine. There are several dining rooms, and none is like any of the others. Their names describe them. The creek side Greenhouse is best for sunlit meals. There's an airy, glass-enclosed Garden Room, a balconied Fireside Room, a rooftop Redwood Room, and an elegant Main Dining Room. There's more, but you get the picture.

The Shadowbrook is often named the "most romantic" restaurant by the area press. While accurate, it sounds gooey and artificial. It's decidedly not those things. It simply feels very good to be there. Especially on Wednesday night.

Coming soon are Byington Winery & Vineyard–March 13, Silver Mountain Vineyards–March 20, Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards–March 27, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard–April 3, David Bruce Winery–April 10, Fellom Ranch Vineyards–April 17, Salamandre–April 24, Trout Gulch Vineyards–May 1, Cooper-Garrod–May 8, Andersen Vineyard–May 15, Zayante Vineyards–May 22, Page Mill Winery–May 29.

The Wednesday Night Flights promotion continues weekly through May, takes a hiatus during the busy summer months, and returns in October.

The Shadowbrook, 1750 Wharf Road, Capitola. 831.475.1511

© Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers' Association
info@scmwa.com   |  (831) 479-9463