On Sunday I attended the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild’s Let Them Drink Wine, an 18th century picnic and wine tasting and Chateau St. Jean winery (Sonoma County, north of San Francisco). It was lovely, lovely, lovely!
The weather was nicer than expected, my hair only uncooperated a little bit, there were about FIFTY people there (wow!), and everyone looked smashing. I wore my peach francaise (naturally) pulled up through the pockets (no train on the ground, thank you!) and Bridget borrowed my new indienne print 1780s polonaise.
The winery itself was beautiful, with a big lawn (set for a wedding later, with lanterns and a beautiful table), lots of trees, and a lovely garden. We hauled my table and chairs which always ends up being so worth it (I so don’t enjoy laying down in costume!) and had a lunch that included savory pies, fresh fruit, rice salad, bread and cheese and meats, dolmas, and a fruit galette for dessert. Then there was a wine tasting, where we got to try four different varieties (including the $75/bottle merlot, which was outstanding). There was much taking of pictures as we strolled in the formal garden (see if you can spot the one we called “the Kyoto picture”!) and admiring of costumes; a stunning range was there with many more sacques than I expected, some lovely anglaises and jacket/petticoat outfits, as well as men in SILK (hello!). I only got pictures of about half of the beautiful costumes; hopefully others got the ones I missed. After a while we had a dessert contest, where Peri’s fabulous chocolate lavender truffles won, and I adored the strawberry/pear/sour cream/cheesecake confection (yum). Things ended too soon, although I was dead by the time I hit the car — but here are the pictures quickly, because yay for outdoor day photos — no red eye to correct, no backgrounds to blur!
Can we do it again next weekend?
Oh right, it might help if I linked to my pictures, wouldn’t it?