When harvest ends in the Napa Valley, you can almost hear a collective sigh from the vineyards: The days and nights of watching the sky, checking the sugar levels of grapes, reading weather forecasts, walking the vineyards — all the endless hours of work all come to a finish, more or less. 

In the fall too, Yosemite Valley, one of the most popular vacation spots in California, is emptied of its throng of summer visitors. The waterfalls may have dwindled, but so have the crowds. A sense of peace descends on the valley.

It might almost be a perfect convergence of forces: Time for a break; time to enjoy the fruits of harvests past in this incomparable mountain setting.

Wine and Half Dome? It might not get much better than this. It was 25 years ago that the staff of the Ahwahnee Hotel came up with the idea of creating Vintners’ Holidays in November. The grand hotel, which opened in 1927, has played host to the likes of John Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II, but its splendor is crafted so that it seems to grow out of its mountain setting in the forest, amid the towering rock walls of the valley. Walk a little ways away from the Ahwahnee and it disappears from view.

 The Vintners’ Holidays started with “a bottle of wine and maybe 30 people,” recalled Stewart Good, who was working as a bartender at the Ahwahnee in 1981. Good describes himself as “one of those people who came here for a summer job and never left,” he said. “Forty-four years later, I’m still here.”

Now food and beverage manager for the Ahwahnee, Good is credited with the success of the Vintners’ Holidays in Yosemite. “The man, the myth and the legend,” Tom Rinaldi, winemaker at Provenance Vineyards, called him.

Wine tastings in hotels were rare events in those days, but the idea took hold. Today, the Vintners’ Holidays have grown to encompass eight two-and three-day sessions from the end of October to early December; still, these events have managed to retain something lacking in the plethora of present day wine events — an utter lack of pretension, a sense of adventure; in a word, these events are fun, not only for the guests but for the guest winemakers too. 

“This is the event you clear your calendar for,” said Ed Sbragia, from Beringer Vineyards and the Sbragia Family Vineyards.

“If Stew doesn’t call you, you call him,” added Rinaldi. Both longtime participants in the Vintners’ Holidays, they were in Yosemite, along with Rob McNeil from Mumm Napa Valley and George Bursick from J Vineyards & Winery, for a three-day session, Nov. 5-7, the second of the 2006 silver anniversary season.

The format is simple for the holidays. It begins with an evening reception with the winemakers. Over the next two days each winemaker presents a wine-tasting session.

“We don’t ask a lot of the winemakers,” Good explained, “to come to the reception, the dinner, and to do one session. We really mean for it to be a holiday for everyone, including them.”

The rest of the time there are the splendors of Yosemite in the fall to explore, and the resulting sense of relaxation permeates the event. Rinaldi, a renowned maker of merlot, opened his session, titled “The Other Side of ‘Sideways’” by regaling guests with his mountain-biking adventures. (As for “Sideways,” one hopes Rinaldi had the final word on that film: “Miles [the merlot-phobic protagonist] — this is not the guy you want to get our wine information from.”)

McNeil, who was in Yosemite with his family and some friends from Healdsburg, spent time hiking up the Vernal and Nevada falls trail, and opened his own sparkling wine tasting by admitting to the audience he was touched that they would come inside “and listen to me on one of the prettiest days in one of the prettiest places in the world.”

Although nearly 200 people in fact turned up in the grand lounge of the Ahwahnee for each tasting session, the mood is informal and conversational. The winemakers use the occasion to introduce new wines, or in the case of Sbragia, long associated with Beringer, a new family enterprise, Sbragia Family Vineyards in Sonoma.

Napa Valley winemakers are prominent in the lineup of all eight sessions, and Peter Marks, curator of wine at Copia, will moderate two sessions, Dec. 3-5 and Dec. 6-7.  Good said he has, in the past, featured some wines from abroad, but prefers to put a spotlight on California winemakers, both the well known and the newcomers. And although in his 25 years, he’s had a few harrowing experiences — one winemaker required him to send all the tasting glasses back to be rewashed because he tasted a trace of soap; another time a moderator didn’t show up and Good found himself conducting a session — these days the event unfolds like a balmy Indian summer day.

Guests — many of whom come back year after year, and bring friends too —  are just as easy-going. “We hope you don’t mind but we aren’t reverent,” one woman commented as she tasted the four sparkling wines McNeil had brought. “The truth is, we just like wine.”

Each session culminates with a gala dinner for which Chef Percy Whately and Pastry Chef Kees Thuys create a menu to complement the wines the winemakers have brought. At this session about 260 diners filled the majestic Ahwahnee dining room, and Whatley’s menu was nothing short of spectacular: With the Mumm DVX, sea scallops with celeriac puree and a dab of caviar. Rinaldi introduced a 2005 Provenance sauvignon blanc, which was paired with caramelized fennel bisque. A “J” pinot noir was served with a pan roasted squab breast. Diners next sampled a Sbragia cabernet sauvignon with a long-roasted lamb shoulder. The grand finale was Thuys’ dessert, a New York cheesecake ice cream, with a red wine fig compote. Guests at this table had brought a Port and a late harvest riesling from Navarro to wrap up the meal.

After this, one had only to find one’s way up to one’s feather bed in a room at the Ahwahnee, contemplate the valley filled with light from the full moon and admit that life is something to savor.

Good, who was lauded at the dinner for his achievements over 25 years of creating such memories, was humble. “Yosemite makes it easy for me,” he said. “If I was at Denny’s in Fresno, it might not be the same. But this” — gesturing at the view of Half Dome — “is my backdrop. I can’t take too much credit.”

Two-, three- and five-night packages with lodging and event for Vintners’ Holidays are available at both the Ahwahnee Hotel and Yosemite Lodge. The Ahwahnee also hosts Chefs’ Holidays Jan. 7-Feb.1, and it is the site for the historic Bracebridge dinners, which recreate a Renaissance Christmas feast complete with music and entertainment, during December. For more information and reservations for these events, call (559) 253-2054 or visit www.yosemitepark.com.