MENDOCINO CO., 2/2/26 — On Saturday, the barn at Campovida winery in Hopland bustled with over 200 eventgoers tasting wines from local vineyards, oysters freshly caught off the Northern California coast, as well as other foods from Hopland restaurants. Destination Hopland’s fourth annual Sparkling Wine and Oyster Celebration was a sold-out event that featured more than two dozen vendors serving sparkling wine from vineyards in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
A sold-out celebration in Hopland
“Destination Hopland has been around for over 30 years,” said Julie Golden of the marketing group. “We’re a nonprofit organization of wineries, and we have associate members that are our local businesses in Hopland. We’re trying to bring awareness and customer satisfaction and more customers here to Hopland. … I’ve been a farmer a long time, and we’re just here to support local businesses and drive more economic prosperity.”
Lively partiers moved from booth to booth, trying different sparkling wines, oysters and other appetizers such as mac and cheese and Thai food. Nancy Villegas, of Redwood Valley, was there with her husband. They were having a great time trying different wine and food pairings. She said enjoyed seeing the cooperation among the different vendors.
“Everyone’s been really nice, mingling around each other, and all the businesses have been like, ‘Hey, want to try this? This will go well with their food,’” Villegas said. “They’re kind of all helping each other, and that’s really sweet.”
Wine, oysters and local flavors
Local favorite wineries showed up, including Graziano Family of Wines, Brutocao Family Vineyards, Pennyroyal Farm, Redwood Valley’s AK Wines, and Goldeneye. Other wineries included Iron Horse Vineyards from Sebastopol and T. Berkley Wines from Napa.
Trudy and Gregory Graziano served their namesake sparkling wines, which they have been producing for more than 14 years in Mendocino County.
“It’s a great opportunity to be here to showcase our wines with all the people that came to compare all the different sparkling wines in Mendocino County and Sonoma County, and to try all the fresh, delicious oysters in the area,” Gregory Graziano said.
Little Dory Seafood, a seafood retailer and oyster bar caterer from Point Arena, provided freshly shucked oysters from the Marin Oyster Co., harvested Thursday off Tomales Bay. They were served with cucumber-lime mignonette and finger limes, which gave a zesty, acidic kick. Boonville Distillery offered Bloody Mary oyster shooters with a balanced blend of spicy and sour flavors. Local farm-to-table restaurant Rock Seas also grilled up smoky, buttery oysters on site.
Meanwhile, Osha Thai, Hopland’s newest restaurant, served a herby and spicy chicken larb salad, while the Golden Pig provided its rich and creamy mac and cheese.
Another eventgoer, Sofia Lenta, said she was ecstatic to see folks coming together for a genuine celebration of the local wine community.
“It’s a lot more community-minded — like, it’s very rustic,” Lenta said. “It’s all about the community. It’s people who are familiar with the wines and the wineries and live in the area. I would say it’s a really great reflection of the people who live here. I feel like you don’t get that everywhere,” she added. “This is a very home-style event, and I love Mendocino County for that in general.”
Near the end of the event, Destination Hopland event director Jonathan Darrow called out winning raffle ticket numbers for more than a dozen prizes, including local wines, vouchers for wine tastings and other goods. Several times, Darrow selected random people from the crowd to pick a winning ticket. When he offered the wine glass of raffle tickets to Villegas for her to pick a winner for a prize of Gowan Heirloom Cider, the ticket matched one of her own. Villegas let out an excited whoop and claimed her prize with a wide grin.
As the event wrapped up, attendees left the barn laughing as they walked out into the bright, cloud-covered afternoon.
The Sparkling Wine and Oyster Celebration is a joint benefit for Destination Hopland and the Sanel (Shanel) Valley Academy, the local TK-6 school in Hopland that specializes in STEAM education.
