Wine, live jazz, and a warm September day drew a small crowd Saturday to the Harmony Lakeside RV Park on Mayfield Lake, where local winemakers and Seattle and Portland musicians catered to about 140 people in the spirit of bringing more tourism to East Lewis County.
This is great! was the response from Susan Scholtes, of Kent, who is staying at Harmony RV Park with her husband, Glen, and their friends, Ed and Trudy Sutherland, of Federal Way.
The retired couples thought the idea for a wine and jazz festival on Mayfield Lake was exciting enough to return to Harmony RV Park after visiting in June and hearing about the coming event.
We were the first ones to sign up, Susan said during the festivals opening banquet on Friday. We talked to some other RV owners and told them we were going to a wine- and chocolate-tasting jazz festival down here, and that it was going to be in an RV park, and they thought it was a great idea, too.
Produced by the East Lewis County Chamber of Commerce and its affiliate charitable organization, the Rural Lewis County Community Development Organization, the first annual Harmony Jazz and Wine Festival got started Friday evening with the sounds of Geoffrey Castle on his electric six-string violin.
Castle enchanted the roughly 70 guests Friday evening who came to sample and purchase wines from three local wineries: Scatter Creek Winery, from Tenino, Heymann Whinery, from Centralia, and Weatherwax Cellars, from Onalaska. Fridays evening included a meal and a free taste of local wine in addition to the outdoor concert.
As the dreamy strains from Castles violin filled the park and moved out across Mayfield Lake toward the setting sun, people relaxed in their lawn chairs and sipped wine (Terril Keary, of Scatter Creek Winery, said the fruit wines were some of the most popular this weekend), their bellies full of jerk chicken, Hopping John green salad with raspberry vinaigrette, peach cobbler and strawberry lemonade provided by the Ethel-area Hook, Line and Dine.
Saturdays all-day event drew in nearly twice as many people, with two additional wineries joining in to offer tastes and bottles to buy, including Stinas Cellars, from Tacoma, and Wells Winery, from Onalaska. Chocolate and candy venders were Aunt Kates Chocolates, from Tenino, and Blissful Wunders Confectionery Chocolats, from Olympia.
Saturdays musicians included the RaChiChi Jazz Trio, John Nastos & E4, Shelly Rudolph, Deems Tsutakawa, and Michael Powers.
Proceeds from the weekends festival will benefit charitable and educational programs for rural Lewis County, including scholarships and community resource development, according to Paul Stewart, executive director of the East Lewis County Chamber of Commerce.
Harmony Lakeside RV Park owners Joyce and Ron Hinkley donated space on the waterfront as well as a few RV sites to the event. The benefit to them? Tourism, of course.
Weve got to let people know (about Mossyrock-area sites), Joyce Hinkley said. We have all these parks and boating areas, and all people know about are the Tacoma Power parks (such as Ike Kinswa, which is located just a few miles up the lake from Harmony).
We need to bring all the revenue we can out here, she said.
