The wine folks in Sonoma County sure know how to throw a party.

They celebrated their 28th Sonoma County Showcase Weekend of Wine & Food recently, and they added several new events, making the showcase a four-day celebration and giving it an added dimension.

The biggest change was extending to two days the featured attraction  — Taste of Sonoma, an event similar to Taste Napa Valley, the Friday community-oriented food and wine kickoff for Auction Napa Valley.

To accommodate upscale guests, the Showcase created the Sonoma Weekend Experience this year, offering a choice of four packages involving completely different activities — golf, spa treatments, a visit to Safari West Wildlife Preserve and a wine camp involving lodging in vineyards and private winery guest houses.

Another new event was the Sonoma Family Style Benefit and Gala, held at the Kendall-Jackson Wine Center. Six prominent Sonoma County wine families provided their favorite recipes to six of the area’s top chefs who offered their interpretations of the recipes. It included an expanded silent auction and a toned-down live auction featuring only five lots.

A “hands-on, get-your-boots-dirty” vineyard tour and tasting was held at Gallo’s Barrelli Creek Vineyard, and more than 20 wineries hosted lunches and dinners during the weekend.

The Taste of Sonoma event, held at Gallo’s MacMurray Ranch in the Russian River Valley, also featured several innovations that made navigating among wineries and restaurants easier.

Four huge tents were set up — open on all sides, but inside were mounted large ceiling fans which kept the air circulating. This not only helped the guests and people serving the wine and food to stay cool, but it also kept the wine from becoming too warm. Toward the end of the Taste of Napa event at Auction Napa Valley, on a cooking Upvalley afternoon, some of the red wines were too warm to fully appreciate.

The Showcase tents were arranged by appellations. For example, included in the one under the Alexander Valley sign were also wineries from nearby Knights Valley and Chalk Hill, and in the Russian River Valley tent were also the Green Valley and Sonoma Coast appellations.

Scattered through the tents were about 60 chefs whose restaurants are located within the designated appellations, preparing tastes of their specialties.

More than 100 wineries were there, many pouring their full lines. What was most noticeable to this reporter, though, was that at least 60 percent of them were represented by either the winemakers or winery principals. In some cases marketing or tasting room personnel poured, but even these were senior people.

From a few conversations overheard, guests seemed quite surprised and pleased to learn that they were talking to the person whose name was on the label or the person who actually made the wine. That gave a much more personal touch to the visit.

Many wineries lacking wide distribution made their wares available for sale through the Wine Shop, an area located at the event, so guests could buy favorites on the spot. More than 100 wines were on the list.

Another interesting feature was the presentation of numerous free seminars that covered subjects from using the right wine as an ingredient in cooking to discovering lesser known grape varietals. One involved the history of MacMurray Ranch by Kate MacMurray, daughter of actor Fred MacMurray.

The Sonoma County Vintners published a program, which guests carried with them, listing a complete schedule of events, winery descriptions with wines poured and restaurants with the food offered. If you’re a fan of, say, viognier, the program even listed all wines poured by varietal and what wineries are pouring it.