Drinking wine outside
Brumaire 2026 and the pull of al fresco
Sun and blue elbow their way through the clouds outside and I’m writing on my couch with all the windows open, blasting the new Jawdropped. It’s the kind of breezy day to refute something that transplants and out-of-towners love to say, which is that we don’t have seasons in Los Angeles. It might be subtle, but spring is quickly becoming summer and crowds descend on stone fruit at the Sunday market.
This time of year always feels full of potential, and it’s a great time to drink wine outside. “When is it a bad time?” you might ask, and the answer I guess is never, but like a plum, you might be able to get it and even enjoy it outside of peak season, but peak season is when we experience the fullest dimensions of its sweetness.
My season kicked off with an especially special round of al fresco drinking at Brumaire, a seminal, mostly-annual tasting in the Bay Area. It was held later than the usual early March, so when the grapevine started doing its thing there was already some question of whether it was happening in 2026 at all.
The rollout ruffled some feathers. Rather than a public announcement and ticket sales, there was simply an innocuous flyer that included a note not to share it on social media, with donations suggested at the entrance. A well-intentioned bid for organic attendance and intimacy, but perhaps too easily interpreted as invite-only.
That said, those who found their way to the hills of north Berkeley that weekend were met with something that felt…….organic and intimate.
“This is an outdoor event. Please wear appropriate attire, including hiking boots.”
Instead of a room (or several) of winemakers pouring at tables one after the other, instead of eager tasters in concentric throngs around the most sought-after producers, empty glasses outstretched over the shoulders in front of them, instead of 30 to 50 to 100 tables (depending on the fair) stack one on top of the next to navigate and cherry-pick your way through, instead of a veritable zoo, what we found was a modest twenty-two wine producers organized by picnic site in a public park, strolls through trees and over streams between pours, muddy boots and warm bowls of curried chickpeas. It was truly an idyllic wine fair and truly nothing like anything I’ve experienced in the U.S. or abroad.
It’s worth noting that the experience was in large part possible because it was pretty small (see again: intimate) and also because it was mostly people who have known each other for several to many years. Not only does it feel like a case study for the proclamation of Values thing I wrote about a few weeks ago, but also for the tension between intimacy and inaccessibility that I’ve seen play out in wine over and over. How do these values of connection, creativity and integrity espoused by winemakers like those who poured at Brumaire (not to mention the fair’s organizers and attendees) square up with the fact that an event like this is made possible by some degree of IYKYK? Where does intimacy end and exclusivity begin?
I hate fake dichotomies (and to some degree, the risk of a severe case of inside baseball), so let’s not. I don’t think that intimacy means that you have to close doors in people’s faces, it just means there should be more doors. The team behind Psychic/Triste put on an off-fair in Los Angeles just a few days after Brumaire that allowed a couple hundred (?) more people to taste with almost all of the same producers as we did up in Berkeley, plus a few more. Again, the more the merrier!
The sun is out and all my windows are still open. The breeze of late morning became an effervescent afternoon wind and black walnut trees heavy with their fruit sway on the hill opposite my house, a perfect moment to go drink outside.
See below for a few moments from the fair. I hope it inspires you to grab a bottle, maybe an ice pack, some paper cups, and head to a cutty corner of your nearest park.
Let’s walk together:
since there was no advertisement about it online how do you hear about the next one? i only found out about it after and it felt like it was trade only