Urban wineries are starting to pop up all over the country. In a trend that’s reminiscent of the craft beer brewing trend of the 80’s, urban wineries allow vintners to set up tasting rooms in urban centers without having to pay the high price for land in wine country. Usually they’ll rent an urban space, truck in the grapes from regional vineyards and then ferment and cellar the wine on the premises.

Representing this trend in the East San Francisco Bay area is the East Bay Vintner’s Alliance, a collection of twenty urban wineries spanning from Alameda to North Berkeley. Their headquarters are in Oakland and they source their grapes from Oregon, Southern California and even as far away as the Rhone Valley in France. Their mission is to create awareness in the East Bay that they are the best local source for purchasing local wine and to create excitement about the growing trend of urban wineries.

We’ve heard nothing but amazing things about their events and they got a great one coming up this weekend in Oakland on Saturday, August 6, 2011, The 6th Annual Urban Wine Xperience. This event will feature over twenty wineries from the San Francisco Bay area who will be pouring a variety of white, rosés, reds & stickies. Each winery will team up with a local restaurant or food purveyor in order to create delicious and unique pairings to go with the wines. There will also be live music for dancing on Jack London Pavilion’s sun drenched deck. This is your chance to mingle and drink with winemakers and wine connoisseurs from the East Bay, Napa Valley and beyond. Tickets will most likely go quickly for this event so get yours now before they’re all gone.

And be sure to check out the East Bay Vitner’s Alliance website and Facebook pages so that you can keep up to date on all the great events that they throw.