Sonoma Valley gingerbread displays are a friendly competition among wineries

Three handsome and especially sweet Labrador retrievers are the defending champions of the Sonoma Valley Winery Gingerbread Contest, an 11-year tradition capturing the magic of the holiday season.

What started as a friendly, informal competition among a few tasting rooms has grown into an organized and highly popular contest drawing visitors to tasting rooms and social media sites to cast votes for their favorite gingerbread creations.

The laid-back trio of Larson Family Winery pooches, Buster, Bubba and Pete, charmed last year’s voters enough to give the winery the championship title.

This year’s entry also stars the likable Larson family pets within a clever gingerbread display of grapevines, fence posts, a wine bottle and a saddle, the vignette paying tribute to the family’s long history on the land.

The dogs are sculpted from Rice Krispie treats and covered in fondant - almost as cute as the real-life dogs who laze around the winery and inspired their own label, Three Lab Cab.

The Larson property, once the site of the largest and longest-running rodeo in the Bay Area, has been in the family since 1899.

The gingerbread display honors the motto of the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance, “In Sonoma Valley The Roots Run Deep,” the theme of this year’s competition.

The alliance sponsors the contest, which brings hundreds of visitors into Sonoma Valley tasting rooms during the quiet season following the fall harvest, and the public casts votes at the wineries and online.

Scott Black, marketing director for the alliance, said several thousand votes are cast each year. A drawing awards a case of wine to one online and one in-person voter.

“It adds an extra element of holiday spirit to the wine tasting experience,” Black said.

“Everyone seems to get into the spirit and really enjoy it.”

The only rule is a simple one: Anything visible must be edible.

Various wineries participate each year, with six entries currently vying for the title, about half as many as some years.

They include displays made by winery employees, volunteers and professional bakers, like executive pastry chef Linda Rodriguez of Linda Lou’s Curious Cakes, a 30-year culinary veteran who created the Larson entry this year and is the reigning gingerbread champion.

From the humblest effort to the most extreme entry, the contest primarily is about the holiday spirit, Black said. One of this year’s entries was made by “many hands,” the children of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley.

Assisting longtime gingerbread contest designer Kelly Cleaver, the kids decorated graham cracker squares with cereal and candies, then “glued” them with icing onto a structure depicting the historic Sonoma Plaza building now housing the Highway 12 Vineyards &Winery tasting room.

Cleaver, a nine-year contest veteran, also created a large, three-level gingerbread display for Chateau St. Jean Winery in Kenwood that showcases its tasting room and several historic Sonoma buildings, including the mission, city hall and Sebastiani Theatre.

She rallied a group of friends and family members to help with the impressive entry, a sweet tribute to local history.

Black gives kudos to all the gingerbread designers.

“It’s not exactly the easiest material to work with,” he said. “It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Humidity, heat and cold have adverse effects on gingerbread, even when mounted on foam board frames.

During an earlier contest, one gingerbread entry created with painstaking detail disintegrated midway through the contest’s monthlong run.

The humidity in the wine caves where it was displayed “turned it into a big pile of mush,” Black said.

Becky Larson, who runs Larson Family Winery with her husband, Tom Larson, said it’s especially fun adding a creative element to their holiday celebration.

“Each year we get groups of locals who make a day of it and visit the wineries just to see the gingerbread creations and taste a little wine, of course,” she said. “It is also fun for those visitors not expecting to see such amazing creations inside our tasting room, like tour groups and those guests who drop in.”

Larson Family Winery has participated almost every year, taking the title on a few occasions. Becky Larson remembers winning at least twice, but doesn’t keep count.

It’s all about the wonder of the season, and welcoming visitors to Sonoma Valley wineries.

Contact Towns Correspondent Dianne Reber Hart at sonomatowns@gmail.com.