Passport to the East Bay Wine Trail

The wineries were awesome. The food was way more than I was expecting. I had a great time and enjoyed myself when I was at the tasting rooms. The people serving were kind, informative, and very patient with the large crowds. There was a good variety of types of wine as well. I think $ 40 is still a bit high, but I’m not a wine connoisseur and don’t drink all that much, so I probably put less value on this than others would. The discounted prices on the wine at the event did help if you were planning on buying some anyway… the downfall was you had to carry it around then, which I didn’t plan for.
The major downfall was transportation. The transportation was awful. There was 1 bus running for a supposed ~900 tickets sold… the bus was late (we waited an hour past when it was supposed to be at one winery and finally gave up). Once we got on the bus, it was crowded with not-​entirely-​sober people which lead to drink and food spillage, loudness, and an overall uncomfortable ride around. At the end of the event, there was no announcement to grab the bus as that was your last chance to get it… luckily we caught it and the bus driver informed us that he was only going to 1 tasting room and that was it… not even to the BART. Luckily, it was 4 blocks from the BART, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but if we had gotten stuck there, it would have been a long or costly commute back that we were not expecting.

I don’t typically give 1 star reviews, but man was I disappointed. The event was poorly coordinated so my friend and I couldn’t even make it there.
The website promised us public transit-​ers, a «continuous shuttle» from West Oakland BART station to the wineries. «Continuous»…whatever that means. Other event-​goers were also frustrated at the wait.
First, there were no signs directing us to a shuttle stop.
Second, the website did not note the intervals for the shuttle arrival, making us wait a whole hour until we gave up.
Third, the event coordinator that we called was unhelpful, saying that a shuttle should arrive «any moment now.»
Other people took a taxi to the event, but my friend and I did our own at-​home wine tasting, a stress-​free experience.

What better way to enjoy the East Bay’s local wineries than with an unlimited pass to some of the most prominent cellars and a wine glass that just wouldn’t stay full.
Over 40 local wineries gathered their finest varietals and skipped on over to 6 different tasting rooms. The winemakers themselves got behind the table sampling their standouts like JC’s Imposter, Stomping Girl’s Pinot Noirs and the Urban Legend Tempranillo. Lush!
Despite only making it to 2 of the tasting rooms (Urban Legend and JC Cellars), the festive ambiance of each bustling room, the live music and pulled pork sandwiches, made this this wine trail super awesome. I even heard there was a Mexican bus shuttling people in between stops.
Looking forward to seeing the EBWT grow as the year’s go on!

The east bay vitners’ association just put on its second «passport event» — for $ 30.00 if you pre-​purchase, or $ 45.00 at the doors, you get a wine glass and admission to a variety of different wineries in the East Bay (Oakland, Emeryville, Alameda & Berkeley). Each location has different entertainment (mostly music), and food.
Honestly, this event is not worth $ 45.00 and the website needs a lot of work. They tout the fact that many wineries which are normally not open can be visited, but they don’t tell you that some of the wineries are pouring at other locations — so, you can waste a lot of time driving to closed places. The pours are very, very small (I think I had the equivalent of 1.3 glasses of wine over the entire day), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as I didn’t want more than a sip of many of the wines. The other thing is that a number of these wineries aren’t in the best neighborhoods and it’s a bit odd to be tromping to them w/​wine glass in hand.
I hope they work out the kinks and price this realistically, as there’s a ton of potential here!