Expanded Gay Wine Weekend kicks off July 14-16 in Sonoma and Napa counties

Wine tastings, wine festivals and winery tours are commonplace in Sonoma County. Here in Wine Country, you almost don’t need a calendar. You can count on finding wine-related fun almost anytime.

But six years ago, the founders of Out in the Vineyard, an event and travel company catering to gay tourists, saw a need for a different kind of a Wine Country event.

In 2011, Mark Vogler and Gary Saperstein created the Gay Wine Weekend, which has grown in attendance steadily ever since, with the weekend’s biggest event, the Twilight T-Dance at Santa Rosa’s Chateau St. Jean Winery, drawing nearly 700 people last year.

This year, Gay Wine Weekend runs July 14-16 and has expanded to include events not only in Sonoma, where the weekend celebration is headquartered, but also in Sebastopol, the Russian River Valley and Napa Valley.

“We’re seeing about a 20-percent growth every year,” Vogler said.

“Last year, we had people from 16 states across the U.S. The Gay Wine Weekend has become a destination. We’ve had visitors from Europe, and we had an Australian couple fly in a couple of years ago.”

Affluent market

Vogler, 51, a Sonoma County native, was managing a wine company’s online business when he began to wonder why Wine Country businesses weren’t focusing their marketing efforts on the affluent, sophisticated gay population of the greater Bay Area.

“I started to get flooded with calls and emails from gay friends of mine across the country,” Vogler recalled.

An insight

“They were saying, ‘What wine brands are we supposed to drink that support the gay community? Who do we support that supports us? What restaurants can we go to when we go to Wine Country?

“What are the hotels were I can check into with my husband or boyfriend or partner or whatever?’”

Those questions prompted an insight.

“I realized that no one in the wine business was talking to the LBGT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community at all. I kept pitching this idea during presentations to the wine industry.

“They looked at me like they had no idea what I was talking about,” Vogler said.

“I kept thinking, ‘Is there homophobia here?’ And it took a couple of years to realize ... they just had no experience. They had no access to the gay community,” he explained.

“So I met Gary and we started talking about this. He saw a growth in gays coming to Sonoma County, looking for direction and a way to navigate Wine Country.”

Stimulate traffic

Saperstein, 57, a veteran of the restaurant and hospitality industry, moved 16 years ago from New York to California, working at Auberge Du Soleil restaurant in Napa and the girl & the fig restaurant in Sonoma.

When the nation was stricken by an economic slump in 2008, a winery owner asked Vogler how to stimulate traffic to their wineries.

“I said, ‘Market to the gays. Throw a T-Dance,’” Vogler said. “It’s really an afternoon social event that the gay community has adopted from Victorian ladies’ socials. We had three weeks to put it together, and we had 300 people attend at Beringer Vineyards.”

At the event, gay wine aficionados expressed to gratitude to Vogler and Saperstein.

“It was the first time somebody in the wine industry was talking directly to the gay community.” Saperstein said. “That means a lot to us.”

In 2009, Vogler and Saperstein co-founded Out in the Vineyard, a travel and event promotion company offering “exclusive, luxury itineraries and events in Wine Country for the discerning gay traveler.”

Full weekend

From there, the afternoon social grew into a full weekend of events, and the organizers are still making additions and improvements.

“Our clientele is 35 and over. We have lots of couples with double incomes, also singles and friends. There’s a cross-section,” Saperstein said.

“It’s definitely a more affluent group,” Vogler added. “It’s an older target, people who have established careers, are highly educated and are all about lifestyles: wine, food and good living. But we want to be diverse and inclusive so we have purposely created events that millennials can come to.”

This year, Midnight Sun, one of the oldest and most famous gay bars in San Francisco’s Castro District, will send its deejays to Sonoma to host a pop-up gay bar, with no cover charge, at the B&V Whiskey Bar.

One of the high points of Gay Wine Weekend is the Sunday brunch and fundraising auction for Face to Face, the Sonoma County network dedicated to helping and supporting people with HIV and AIDS.

“I think it’s been really great for both Sonoma and the gay community to get to know each other, and what we’ve found is increased support,” Vogler said.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.