Wine tent assists local community

The Gilroy Rotary volunteers are already at work preparing for the Wine Pavilion at the Garlic Festival. The pavilion, often referred to as the “Wine Tent,” allows festival-goers to sample local wines by the taste or by the glass. Often people will find themselves in the tent enjoying wine and escaping the heat under the cooling misters, but many don’t realize that the Gilroy Rotary has been using the event as a major fundraiser for community projects and outreach for the past 13 years.
All the funds they raise go directly to the club’s Charitable Giving and Scholarship programs. Gilroy Rotarians are actively involved in humanitarian, educational and cultural programs that touch people’s lives in the local community. During the three days of the Garlic Festival, Rotary members staff the ticket booths, sell glasses, and in many cases pour wines for Garlic Festival patrons.
In addition to assisting local charitable causes, the Wine Pavilion also helps boost our local economy by hosting only our local wineries of the Santa Clara Valley. The Garlic Festival is a great way for the wineries to gain exposure and bring customers from the festival to their locations. The event is especially important for wineries that do not yet have tasting rooms, such as Medeiros Family and Chirala, two Morgan Hill wineries participating for the first time this year. In addition to helping small wineries showcase their wines to a new audience, the event helps draw wine lovers from the Garlic Festival out to the wineries in Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Patrons stop by on their way to or from the festival, or in many cases return to the area just to visit the wineries. This year, with the new county sponsored Wine Trail signage, the wineries anticipate an increased amount of traffic to their tasting rooms during and after the event.
So if you’re planning to attend this year’s Garlic Festival, be sure to stop by the wine tent. And if you’re looking for the perfect pairing for all that garlic food, I recommend some dry crisp whites such as sauvignon blanc, some dry sparkling wine or dry rosé. For the red wine lovers out there, go for a merlot or syrah, but for the red wines it really depends on the style of the dish. With so much variety in the types of food at the festival and the number of different types of wine, I recommend getting some different taste tickets and creating your own pairing adventure. Don’t be afraid to try something new; the Garlic Festival is the perfect place for it.
This year’s participating wineries include Chirala Vineyards, Clos LaChance, Creekview Vineyards, Fortino Winery, Guglielmo Winery, Hecker Pass Winery, Kirigin Cellars, Lightheart Cellars, Martin Ranch, Medeiros Family Vineyards, Morgan Hill Cellars, Rapazzini Winery, Sarah’s Vineyard, Satori Cellars, Solis Winery and Sunlit Oaks. They all look forward to sharing their wines with you.