Vino fans head to lake park this weekend

Atascadero News file photo • Atascadero resident Karen Lindsey pours a glass of Castoro Cellars wine at the 2010 Atascadero Lakeside Wine Festival.

ATASCADERO — The Atascadero Lakeside Wine Festival will take place Saturday, June 23. If last year’s 2,000 participants are any indicator, it looks to be a packed and jolly event.

Wine Fest Chairwoman Barbie Butz said that since its inception 17 years ago, the festival has been a fundraising event to help out the Charles Paddock Zoo.

And so, as an extra bonus this year, the zoo will remain open until 6 p.m., an hour past its usual closing time. Admission will be waived for anyone with a wine festival wrist-band, including designated-driver wristbands.

Helping Butz in the worthy endeavor are 66 wineries, eight artists, three commercial vendors and 11 restaurants. Will they be enough to support the 2,000 expected visitors? Butz thinks so.

“If you wanted to sell Atascadero, this was it,” Butz said in 2011. “You’ve got a Norman Rockwell setting with all those beautiful big trees, the lake is there, what more could you ask for? It [is] really really beautiful.”

Providing music again this year are the Might Croon Dogs, four-piece band which plays a foot-tapping blend of rock, folk, blues and jazz music.

Last year, Butz said, the festival raised more than $10,000 for the zoo. That money helped build the flamingo exhibit. While there’s no specific animal or exhibit on the festival committee’s agenda, Butz did say she hopes the event will raise as much as last year. While the zoo is the main financial focus, Butz said at least some of the money raised will go toward the Atascadero Lake Park bandstand.

In fact, the party starts tonight with a sold-out winemaker’s dinner hosted by the Atascadero Kiwanis Club. All the money raised at that dinner will go toward the bandstand.

The prospect of wine in the evening at the Atascadero Lake among 2,000 friends and plenty of local vendors and free admission to the zoo gets a lot of people excited.

“We have visitors coming from near and far for this year’s festival,” Butz said. “Many are repeat visitors and many are first-timers.”

The Atascadero Lakeside Wine Festival will take place on Saturday, June 23 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Atascadero Lake, 9305 Pismo Avenue in Atascadero.

For more information or to buy tickets, go to www.atascaderowinefestival.org or call 470-3182.

For the complete article see the 06-22-2012 issue.

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