Taste Event Kicks Off Art and Wine Festival

Wine drinkers and art enthusiasts flooded the upper level of the Scotts Valley Hilton on Thursday evening during the Taste of Scotts Valley, a meet-and-greet event introducing attendees to the art, wine and food vendors participating in this year's 12th Annual Scotts Valley Art and Wine Festival.

Great wine accompanied by the rockin' sounds of Humidor–a mixture of musicians from three of the six bands that will be performing at the festival–gave attendees a pre-festival experience as they strolled along tables of crafts ranging from a white-headed black Polish rooster by Scotts Valley artist Sharon Medler, to a serving tray made from an old wine barrel lid.

Robert “Bob” Dixon of Soquel, who created the serving tray, said he picked up the wine-barrel idea when his daughter married into a wine family in Sonoma County.

“I make furniture, mostly decorations, candle things, Lazy Susans, decorative bowls for the middle of your table,” said Dixon, who will have 20 to 30 pieces of his work at the festival. “I've always done wood work, but [the serving tray] was just a new twist on it.”

The event also included the unveiling of this year's festival poster, titled Art in the Park, by Sunnyvale resident Sheila Collins.

Sharolynn Ullestad, executive director for the Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce who oversees the festival, said this was the first year the Chamber had a poster created of quilted fabric, and that Collins’ work was selected from a pool of eight to 10 posters because it best represented the festival spirit.

“We always try to look not only at the quality of the art, but what it says about the festival,” Ullestad said. “The neat thing about it is that it captured the festival. If you look at it, it's very festive and fun, the colors are great.”

In creating her festival poster, Collins said she tried to capture Scotts Valley's unique festival setting, which has a backdrop of the mountains and booths in clusters of four.

“I just wanted something that exuded fun and color and would make you want to go, so I think I did my homework well,” said Collins, who specializes in dimensional fine art. “And my dimensional fabric art is a new creative path for me as well, so it was a fun exercise.”

Around 20 items were raffled off toward the end of the night, including a family portrait session with Scotts Valley's Jesse Gabriel Photography valued at $250, a pearl necklace and a bird house made of old barn wood.

Brian Iles, who has been designing custom birdhouses for close to three years, said he adopted the trade after seeing the joy his creations brought his mother.

“I'm looking at my bird houses as a people pleaser–I want you to be happy,” said Iles, who will have around 60 birdhouses at the festival. “It made my mom happy, and that made me feel good. So I essentially don't really care about bird houses, I care about people, and it's just a good excuse to be doing what I'm doing.”

The Scotts Valley Art and Wine Festival, hosted by the Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce and Scotts Valley Arts Commission, started as Art in the Park with a few vendors and two acoustic guitar players in1999, and has since grown into a highly recognized event hosting over 100 booths annually.

Attendees can expect to sample a spread from 10 different food vendors at this year's festival, as well as wines from many of the local Santa Cruz Mountains wineries. Bargetto, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, Poetic Cellars, Sones Cellars, Odonata Wines, Hallcrest Vineyards and Skov Winery will be among the 12 wineries participating this year.

Annette Hunt of Skov Winery in Scotts Valley, which had its grand opening on March 5, said they specialize in creating palatable, oak-aged wines that are food friendly and affordable.

“Our wines aren't your big, heavy, robust, 'You can only drink this wine if you have food with it' [wines],” Hunt said. “You could drink our red wine on a blazing hot day, and it's not going to dry you out.”

Odonata Wines, a small winery based in Santa Cruz, produces about 1,200 cases of wine a year, with a focus on sustainable wine production.

“My winery is on the west side of Santa Cruz. I'm 45 minutes from my front door with all my vineyards that I work with, they're all sustainable, all the way up to organic,” said Denis Hoey, owner of Odonata Wines, who will be participating in the festival for the second year.

Santa Cruz Pizza Company, Cafe Carlos and Heavenly Cafe are among some of the food vendors participating.

For more information or to volunteer for the event, refer to the Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce website.