Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction clowning around and having a great time for Sonoma charities

Wines & Vines, July, 2000

The Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction, which always manages to come up with something totally ridiculous, has hit on a circus theme for this year's 8th annual charity auction over Labor Day weekend.

Billing itself as the Cirque du Sonoma--a troupe of wine jugglers, grape trainers and vine walkers--the auction will feature over 80 lots of wine and wine-theme vacations and lifestyle events.

The auction, sponsored by the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance, is infamous for the annual poster. This year's poster shows local vintners and growers and friends under a circus tent, dressed as clowns with big red noses. The cast is perched on a swaying trapeze. The caption comes from a wine critic in the front row, who says, "It might be slightly unbalanced but it has a great nose."

"Our three rings are all off-center and the players work without a net," says Chris Finlay, executive director of the Alliance. "All in all, just another day at the office."

The auction benefits the Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation, Valley of the Moon Boys & Girls Club, Vineyard Workers Services, Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, La Luz Center, El Nido Teen Center and the Sonoma Ecology Center. In just seven years, the auction has raised more than $1.4 million for local non-profit groups.

Sponsors this year include American Airlines, KPIX-TV, Wine.com, Pacific Coast Farm Credit, Sub-Zero and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.