Curtis Park residents know how to throw a party. The 20th Annual Wine Tasting and Silent Auction event converted the Sierra 2 Center into a interactive showcase of fine wine, beer and gourmet eats.

With 450 tickets sold before the event even began, only 100 were still available for purchase at the door. Curtis Park Neighborhood Association President Rosanna Herber said she expected the event to sell out.

More than 35 wineries offered tastings of their red and white wines and many provided food pairings to complement their generous samples.

People wandered slowly down the line of sampling tables with plates and wine glasses in hand. With no particular agenda or method, they followed their noses to trays of food that were refreshed regularly throughout the evening.

One of the most consistently crowded areas of the Sierra 2 Center was an outdoor section of Astroturf that had been converted into a beer garden. Pangaea Two Brews Cafe provided the selection of Belgian beers from 15 different breweries.

“This is some of the best beer you can get in the region,” Herber said.

People scanned the rows of bottles, overwhelmed by their options as helpful volunteers poured ice cold beer into wine glasses.

The abundance of beverage options were matched by more than 26 restaurants catering portions of their menus to the hungry crowd. Swarms of people lingered around Tuli Bistro's outdoor oven, which couldn't turn pizzas out fast enough to arrest people's voracious appetites.

Other favorites included lamb and beef meatballs in a spicy sauce served by Tapa The World, teriyaki chicken over rice by Megami Bento-Ya Restaurant and good old-fashioned macaroni and cheese with bread crumbs served by Dad's Kitchen.

Curtis Park resident Linda Elgart has attended the event for the last 14 years and said this year's appeared to be a little bit bigger. Elgart's pride for her neighborhood was evident in how she spoke so highly of events like this one.

“The neighborhood is just amazing because we have so many civic events that take place,” she said.

Elgart said that the Curtis Park community is neighborly in an old-fashioned way that you don't usually find. She said that people socialize with their neighbors.

“We're friends,” Elgart said.

An inviting and neighborly atmosphere could be seen throughout the event as people leisurely conversed their way through the rows of tables, eating, talking and laughing as they went.

A silent auction took place at a dozen or more tables spread throughout the Sierra 2 Center. Proceeds from the auction benefited the McClatchy High School track team, Bret Harte Elementary School and the Sierra 2 Center.

“We have a lot of bigger auction items than we've had in the past,” Herber said.

All auction items combined were valued at around $15,000, and Herber was confident that neighbors would bid the items up even higher than that.

One of the more unique items on auction this year included a private tour through the Crocker Art Museum led by the museum's executive director, Lyle Jones.

And in celebration of their 70th year, Gunther's Ice Cream auctioned off the opportunity for about four people to have an ice cream flavor of the month named after them.

As the day’s heat relented and people found refreshment in a cold beverage and neighborly conversation, harpist Bill Damian filled any momentary silences with classical music.

Herber said she anticipated the event to be a “hoot and a holler,” and based on the overall sound of merrymaking and wine glasses clanking, one might say she was right in thinking so.

Herber did say after all, “We’ve got a lot to celebrate.”