The big smiles on the faces of those attending last weekend’s Home Winemakers Classic were created by the quality of the excellent garagista blends.

Some would say that the wines poured at the 27th annual fundraiser for the Dry Creek/Lokoya Volunteer Fire Department were the best they’ve ever been. A few wags might declare that after more than two decades, it’s about time the avocational cellarmasters got it right. As a regular attendee over the years, I agree that practice makes perfect, but must insist that a number of the returning home winemakers have been getting it right for some time now.

Take airline pilot, jazz combo drummer and home winemaker Soren Bloch. He has been making noteworthy wines from his own Glass Mountain vineyards since the mid-1980s. He sells the majority of his fruit, saving back some for wines he enters in the annual Home Winemakers Classic competition and public tasting.

This year, Bloch’s efforts really paid off. Judges awarded his 2008 Glass Mountain Cellars sauvignon blanc the blue ribbon in the white wine category. That same outstanding sauvignon blanc was also selected as the event’s Best of Show wine. It’s a well-made, well-balanced example of the varietal, refreshingly acidic with lovely lemon zest offered on both nose and palate with a looooonnnnnggg citrus finish. No wonder the judges were eager to single this one out for awards.

Rex Johnston and Barbara Bentley have been taking part in the Home Winemakers Classic for nine years. Their Bentley Cellars sparkling wine was awarded a blue ribbon this year, a crisp expression of the pinot noir (75 percent, Sebastopol) and chardonnay (25 percent, Davis) blend. It had a fruit sweet finish, which, the winemaker said, is the result of his dosaging the wine bit by bit. The wine was also a prize winner at the California State Fair last year. Although he has been making wine for more than three decades, Johnston has no intention of making it his full-time focus. He makes a half-dozen wines every harvest, says the wine’s namesake, totaling about 30 cases. The couple resides in Walnut Creek.

Browns Valley resident Paul Pyle has 30 grapevines in his back yard. Each harvest, he takes the grapes from the backyard plot into his “8-by-10-foot air-conditioned dedicated winemaking facility” and produces wines family and friends look forward to.

Last year’s crush saw Pyle tackle a new project — he made a rosé wine from some of his cabernet sauvignon, picking up a bronze medal for this intense blush wine. Pyle said he intends to adjust his rosé technique the next time around as he was not pleased with the 2008 rosé’s very pale pink hue. More skin contact was needed, he said while pouring a glass of the award-winning wine last Saturday afternoon.

While the wine’s color belied its intensity, Dylan’s Reach 2008 cabernet rosé proved to be a wonderfully fresh quaffer for a warm summer day — a dry, crisp wine with lots of body, showing off its varietal characteristics to good advantage.

A pair of zinfandels from distinct growing regions left one with the impression that the 2006 harvest gave us wines with less intensity than what we’d expect. There was nothing wrong with the wines, mind you, just that light-bodied is not the descriptor that usually comes to mind when talking about zinfandel.

Black Dog’s Dave Steiner produced another winner with his 2006 zin from Darms Lane. Drinkable now, it’s a well-balanced zin showing off ripe black fruit. But even Steiner was hankering for a glass of his blockbuster ‘05 zin by the time the event was over.

David Chavez produced some 50 cases of his Side Club 2006 zinfandel from grapes grown in Solano County’s Green Valley. Even though he farms head-pruned, low yield vines, Chavez admitted the ‘06 is a light-bodied wine. Ripe fruit, attractive varietal nose and juicy black fruit are its hallmarks. Chavez has been making wine for four years and this was his third Classic.

Valdiguié is often mis-identified as Napa gamay. It’s really a workhorse grape from France that makes deeply colored red wines with low alcohol. It is also known for giving wines bright, brilliant acid. For his Gunn Barrel 2007 valdiguié, Jim McCully gets fruit from a Suisun Valley grower who sells the majority of it for blending. The blue ribbon-winning wine was light-bodied with an enticing black cherry nose and lots of cherry on the palate, and, as expected, brilliant acid.

Another blue ribbon winner (among the group of friends that includes McCully) was the 2007 McQuib malbec produced by Sonoma’s Carole Quibell and Don McLain and associates. Coming from Napa, Vallejo, Fairfield and Sonoma, the winemaking group helps all the dedicated winemakers with each and every garagista blend, Quibell said. The McQuib malbec spent 22 months on American oak. Exhibiting big, ripe fruit, the well-balanced malbec   didn’t even hint at its 13.5 alcohol level. It’s a lush wine that could compete with any of the commercial bottlings I’ve tasted lately.

Lively acid, ripe fruit and a long finish were the noteworthy characteristics of the A. Andolini 2005 Oak Knoll cabernet sauvignon. Padrone David Caraska and his team were able to make 100 cases of this wine from the record ‘05 harvest.

We were treated to a preview of what’s to come next year from Salute per Tutti, the family wine project of Keith, Sandy, Jon, Joe (and Pam), Kassie (and Andy) and Jeni Borreson. The Borresons have put together a sensational 2008 syrah from Parmelee Hill, near the Durrell vineyard in Sonoma. But they said it needs another year in the cellar before it’s ready for the judges and public at the 2010 Home Winemakers Classic. We can’t wait.

And what would a Home Winemakers Classic be without the Valley Girls? This year, Kasandra Weinerth and Lee Dalbey (and their spouses, or is that spice?) poured 2007 OMG, short for “oh my God” A blend of merlot (75 percent from the Pettigrew vineyard on Monticello Road) and Diamond Mountain cabernet sauvignon (25 percent), OMG is an inviting, balanced mouthful of red cherries and raspberries worthy of its enological heritage. It didn’t get a ribbon, but it’s a winner in my book.

In some categories, no ribbons were awarded. The complete list of ribbon winners at the 2009 Home Winemakers Classic is as follows:

White wine

Glass Mountain Cellars 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, first place; Bentley Cellars 2006 Russian River sparkling wine, first place; Dylan’s Reach 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé, third place.

Pinot noir

Clos Valmi 2007 Yountville Pinot Noir, 2nd place; Tangled Vines 2007 Carneros Pinot Noir, third place.

Cabernet sauvignon, 2005 and 2006

A. Andolini 2005 Oak Knoll Cabernet Sauvignon,  third place.

Zinfandel, 2006

Black Dog Napa Valley and Side Club Green Valley, first place (tie); JFD Estate Sonoma Mountain, third place.

Zinfandel, 2007

Fickle Ferminators Napa and Chateau Garnier Sonoma, second place (tie); Hannan Smith Russian River, third place.

Meritage

Bennett Ridge Russian River 2006 Meritage, third place.

Syrah

Casa Moneta 2005 Santa Ynez Mountains Syrah, first place; Orinda Cellars 2006 Suisun Valley Syrah, second place.

Miscellaneous Red

Gunn Barrel 2007 Suisun Valley Valdiguié and McQuib 2007 Sonoma Valley Malbec, first place (tie).

Dessert

Leap of Faith 2007 Napa Valley Syrah Port, first place.