By Aaron Geerts
Express staff writer
With 2022 in the rearview mirror, Winters can look forward to 2023. Along with it come delightful dinners and events at every turn compliments of Turkovich Family Wines, Berryessa Gap Vineyards and L’Apero les Trois.
Turkovich Family Wines has a new wine club manager and events coordinator, and she’s working to bring opportunities for their wine club members at the winery on Buckeye Road and their tasting room at 304 Railroad Ave.
“I just became the Wine Club Manager and took over events, so this will be my first wine club event running it by myself and I’m excited to see how it goes,” said Baylee Treasure-Shaw, the new wine club manager. “Coming out is an opportunity for wine club members to meet other wine club members, mingle and make friends. Not a lot of them have been to our winery before so it’ll be a chance to experience our winery and it’s amazing out there.”
Also upcoming for Turkovich is a Valentine’s Day special on Feb. 14. In March they also have Spring Shipping Wine Club from March 6–9, Prune Boom Tastings March 29 to April 3, a Sushi night at their winery on April 13 as well as a Wine Club Picnic on April 22. They will be hosting an art show by local artist Roseanne Seitz on May 6, will be having their Summer Wine Club Week from May 15–20, with Music at the Winery on May 26, and finally, the June Wine Club Picnic will be held on June 24.
One can stay up to date with the upcoming events by visiting their website at turkovichwines.com
Meanwhile, at L’Apero, the trois are continuing their tradition of hosting seasonal dinners every other month which feature a choice aperitif. The first will be held on Feb. 13 and celebrate the Meyer lemon aperitif. Those in attendance will be served a five-course meal, along with the appropriate wine and/or aperitif pairings.
“We start with the appetizer featuring the Meyer lemon aperitif. We’ll serve that cocktail style with some sparkling wine added to it. We’ll potentially have smoked salmon with capers, Korean olive tapenade, maybe some pickled cherries as well,” said Corinne Martinez, local wine guru and one of L’Apero’s owners. “The rest of the courses will be paired with Berryessa Gap wines that are yet to be determined. There’s a salad and/or soup course and we may do a French onion soup, then the main course will be osso buco with a lemon risotto. We will also have a cheese course before dessert, then the dessert course will be some sort of lemon tart.”
It all takes place at L’Apero with ticket priority going to their club members. Tickets go fast, so one can stay up to date on when these events take place by signing up for their mailing list at laperolestrois.com.
Martinez went on to lay out April’s dinner event which will celebrate the rosemary orange aperitif, in June they’ll be celebrating their apricot aperitif, August belongs to the fig aperitif, October will celebrate the quince and December will celebrate the green walnut.
Finally, at Berryessa Gap, they will be hosting a global dinner series with their first taking place on Jan. 21. This will be a unique opportunity for attendees to taste cuisines from across the world just a stone’s throw away at the Berryessa Gap Winery on Highway 128. Not to mention, wine pairings to complement the diversity of food.
“We’re calling the first dinner of this year a ‘Bohemian Feast.’ Bohemia started in the Czech Republic, so we have a guy coming from La Trattoria in east Sacramento and he’s going to be making us chicken paprikash on homemade noodles along with a beef goulash stew and an apple strudel,” said Brendan McShea, the Director of Hospitality. “Every dinner will have the release of a wine you can’t get normally, or there’s a special on one of our other wines. Then the last part of this we say, ‘We’re bringing the world to Winters, so bring your home to us.’ We just encourage people to decorate their tables with stuff they bring from home. Plates and bowls and decorations and stuff like that. It’s really cool to see tables take on their own personalities.”
