{"id":592,"date":"2017-05-30T17:51:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T17:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=592"},"modified":"2017-06-19T21:13:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T21:13:40","slug":"santa-rosas-wednesday-night-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=592","title":{"rendered":"Santa Rosa\u2019s Wednesday Night Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have found that the toughest times on a wine tasting trip are the hours after wine tasting and before dinner.\u00a0 You\u2019ve come back to your hotel from your last winery of the day, maybe gone for swim, freshened up\u2026and now what?\u00a0 On other types of vacations, you\u2019d find a nice lounge and have a pre-dinner drink.\u00a0 But you\u2019ve been sipping wine all day and you\u2019ll possibly have some more with your meal, so more alcohol at this point is not a good idea.\u00a0 A little shopping in Sonoma, Yountville, Healdsburg or St. Helena would be nice but the stores are all closed.\u00a0 Where to go?\u00a0 What to do?<\/p>\n

If you are in or around Santa Rosa on a Wednesday evening in warm weather, here\u2019s a suggestion: the Wednesday Night Market on 4th<\/sup> Street near Courthouse Square.\u00a0 If you\u2019d like to spend a little time getting to know the local populace and not just hanging out with wine snobs, come on down.\u00a0 There\u2019s a high chance that you\u2019ll be rubbing shoulders with the same people who farmed the grapes and made the wine that you were sampling all day.\u00a0 They\u2019re out to buy things they need, listen to some music, party a bit and generally enjoy themselves.\u00a0 You can join them.<\/p>\n

The Wednesday Night Market is actually a street fair and a farmer\u2019s market mixed together.\u00a0 It\u2019s a long row of little tents where vendors sell food, drinks, crafts, art, knickknacks, household services and, most particularly local produce.\u00a0 Scattered among the booths are music venues, leaning heavily to country & western and Mexicana.\u00a0 People use the term \u201cdancing in the streets\u201d to imply joyous celebration, so on these summer evenings you can come be a part of it.\u00a0 There are also many children\u2019s activities, which for some wine tasting visitors may solve yet another problem.<\/p>\n

You can enjoy an ambulatory meal of local specialties, mostly Mexican-inspired, like tacos and grilled turkey legs.\u00a0 Of course, the usual hot dogs and pizza are available too.\u00a0 (The food at the numerous street fairs in New York City are more Italian-flavored.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t see any calzones or zeppoles in Santa Rosa).\u00a0 There are little terraces where you can sample Sonoma County wines, which you have probably been doing all day anyway, or chug a cold beer on a hot night.<\/p>\n

\"santa<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Rincon Valley blog<\/em><\/p>\n

The best of the best of the Santa Rosa street market is the produce.\u00a0 In case you had forgotten, you will immediately remember that California is the fruit basket of the United States.\u00a0 Go from one stall to another and vendors will offer you samples: peaches, plums, radishes, strawberries, carrots, cherries, melons and tomatoes.\u00a0 Oh, the fruits and vegetables of summer in California!\u00a0 Everything is fresh, colorful and bursting with flavor.<\/p>\n

\"strawberries\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of KQED<\/em><\/p>\n

You, or at least most of you, don\u2019t live in or near Santa Rosa, so what are you going to do with anything you buy?\u00a0 Hopefully you have a refrigerator at your disposal at your hotel, so your purchases will last a few days.\u00a0 Even so, your mouth will be bigger than your belly.\u00a0 So what?\u00a0 Of course, it\u2019s always a shame to throw away food but the prices at the Wednesday Night Market are so low, especially with regard to the quality you get, that we\u2019re probably talking about less than you paid during the day for a tasting at a single winery.\u00a0 So get yourself peaches or strawberries that you\u2019ll remember forever.<\/p>\n

In 2017, the market will occur on Wednesday nights from 5:00 to 8:30, from May 3 to August 16.\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have found that the toughest times on a wine tasting trip are the hours after wine tasting and before dinner.\u00a0 You\u2019ve come back to your hotel from your last winery of the day, maybe gone for swim, freshened up\u2026and now what?\u00a0 On other types of vacations, you\u2019d find a nice lounge and have a … Continue reading Santa Rosa\u2019s Wednesday Night Market<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}