THEY SAY... A rose is a rose is a rose. And a concert may be a concert may be a concert. But any concert goer knows that a pretty setting on a pretty summer night does much to heighten the mood and tenor and general sparkly feeling of the crowd. Which is one reason why that the winery summer concert series fill us with a special seasonal joy. Not every winery hosts live shows, but those few that do go big). How big? Well, take The Mountain Winery in Saratoga. It just announced its summer concert season and, as in years past, that thing is frankly headlinery. There isn't another word for it. How headlinery? Here are a few names from the 60 or so shows set to kick off on Friday, May 25: Willie Nelson. Ira Glass. Lyle Lovett. Ringo Starr. Earth, Wind & Fire. Chris Isaak. Well, we'll be frank: We're tempted to type out every name on the list. Now imagine seeing them in a Santa Cruz Mountains setting, with wine at the near. Hello, are we happy? We're happy.
GOOD TO KNOW: There are dining options before each show. There are also wine tastings at The Mountain, Thursday through Sunday, so if your chosen concert happens to fall on one of those days we'd definitely arrive early to sample some of the local vino. And the Rivers of Chocolate Festival is just ahead, on Sunday, April 29. That's actually unrelated to the concert series, but it does have the words "rivers" and "chocolate" in it, so we'd be remiss not to mention it before we go. Do you need us to start listing those headlinery names again? Okay. Barenaked Ladies. Michael Franti. Alison Krauss...
