I have lived in Redlands most of my life, and last Wednesday I found out I have been driving right past something I always figured meant leaving town.

Liz and I met up with our friends Raul and Shelly at Total Wine on San Bernardino Avenue, and it turned into a lot more than a bottle run. 

They were hosting a full wine-and-cheese pairing class, the kind of thing I always pictured as a weekend in Temecula or a plane ticket to Sonoma. It does not.

It is fifteen minutes from Mountain Home Village.

This week also brings the Redlands Bowl's grand finale of the summer season, complete with fireworks, a first-of-its-kind market debuting on State Street, and Monday morning the halls fill back up as RUSD kids head back to class.

Let's get into what's happening around town.
Carlos

Liz and I have talked for years about taking a real wine tasting class, and we always pictured it two hours away. Then Raul and Shelly invited us to one at Total Wine in the Mountain Grove center, and I spent the drive over assuming it would be a sales pitch with a wine glass attached.

It was not. Our instructor, Robert, walked the room through five real pairings, starting with a crisp Spanish Cava next to a wedge of Brie and finishing with a ten-year-old Tawny Port up against a cheese funky enough to make you flinch, until the Port's sweetness talked it down. Hands down my favorite pairing.

In between came a Sauvignon Blanc with goat cheese and a Malbec paired with something nutty enough to stand up to it. Robert explained why some pairings work because they match, and others work because they are total opposites, which sounds simple until you taste it happen in your own mouth.

The class ran ninety minutes; it was sold out the night we went, and the next one is already on the calendar for August 22nd.

If you have been putting off a real tasting because you figured it meant a road trip, it does not.

Three nights of Redlands Bowl summer music remain, and Friday is the big one. Fireworks Finale wraps the 2026 season with the Redlands Symphony backing two serious voices, and closes, as it always has, with fireworks over Smiley Park.

Conductor Nolan Livesay leads the orchestra through Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major with soloist Miclen LaiPang, alongside vocalists Daniel Emmet, a 2018 America's Got Talent finalist who has toured with David Foster, and Amy Manford, who has sung Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera as far away as the Sydney Opera House. It is a lineup that would normally carry a ticket price, and at the Bowl it never has.

Come whenever, bring a blanket and dinner, and get there early for a bench seat. Freewill offering only, no tickets required.

Backpacks and free meals for every RUSD kid. Redlands Unified starts the 2026-27 school year this Thursday, August 13th, and every student districtwide gets free breakfast and lunch again this year through California's Universal Meals Program. No application, no cost, just show up hungry.

A real fix for the walk between Highland and Redlands. The Highland-Redlands Regional Gap Connector just picked up another $3 million in clean transportation funding, bringing the project's recent haul to $5 million. It closes the last gap in a five-mile protected corridor linking Citrus Valley High School to Arroyo Verde Elementary, a route a lot of our kids already walk and bike.

Champagne and Italian jewelry on State Street. Emerson Fine Jewelry hosts a Marco Bicego trunk show this Friday, August 14th, with champagne, hors d'oeuvres, and a raffle entry with any purchase. Call 909-798-5888 for exact hours.

A nod to the Coast Guard. Hangar 24's Redlands taproom marks the Coast Guard's birthday this Friday alongside their regular live music night. My daughter Bella is out there serving right now, so that one hits close to home.

If you take one thing from this issue, make it this: get on the list for Total Wine's next class, From Tip to Toe: A Wine Tour of Italy, Saturday, August 22nd from 5 to 6:30 PM. It's twenty dollars a person; it sold out the week we went, and I have a feeling Prosecco and Sangiovese move even faster.

Between the Bowl's last hurrah and a new market opening its doors for the first time, this is the kind of week that reminds me why I started this newsletter.

Get out there and see it for yourself.