SAN FRANCISCO – It's 2:30 p.m. on a crazed Saturday. The folks from Lava Cap Winery are smiling and pouring wine and trying to be friendly and a little informative over the crowd noise that seems just short of that from a jet engine.

In front of Lava Cap's table is a clump of nine people, all with wine glasses, all waiting to taste. Behind them, a happy mass of maybe 5,000 people is roiling through the giant pier building at Fort Mason and the Grand Zinfandel Tasting.

Tom and Beth Jones try mightily. They're the owners of Lava Cap and very nice people who are more on the quiet side. Quiet doesn't really work here.

"These are all estate wines," Beth tells two young women loudly but gently. "This is our Rocky Draw. It's from the lowest part of our vineyard."

"Yes," Tom tells three men, "I'm the winemaker. We're just east of Placerville. Come visit. It's a pretty place."

The men nod with approval at the Reserve. One starts to say "I really like the …" but behind him, there's the clinking of a broken glass, then a thundering cheer from 5,000 people in one huge, celebratory bond. The cheer swells and booms through the hall, bouncing off the metal walls and roof, and when it peaks at maybe five seconds, it sounds like a rocket.

Sometimes promoting your winery takes a little work.

The Joneses were at the 19th annual Zinfandel Festival put on by ZAP – short for Zinfandel Advocates & Producers – the group that sponsors the recent three days of seminars, meals, explosive cheers and this Grand Tasting that was like no other wine event in America.

It had 200-plus wineries pouring 700-plus wines – all of them zinfandel – for most of the day. By afternoon, when the general public joined the industry, press, restaurant and winery folks making the rounds, there were about 8,000 aggressive, congenial, purple-lipped people roaming the two huge halls. It was like someone staged a wine tasting at a Raiders game.

For the tasters, that's not a bad thing. It's great fun and a happy departure from some overly somber tastings.

For the Joneses, here for the 18th time, and for other owners, winemakers and sales folk from those 200 wineries, it can be a wee bit challenging getting people to notice you, to remember your wine or to hear about who you are.

"ZAP has been really significant for us," Beth told me in a quieter moment away from the table. "It's introduced us to new customers and it's given us the chance to show how we compare to wineries around the country.

" It's also a really fun party, but that means there are times when you have to use very short phrases."

She's not kidding. And there are times when it doesn't matter what size phrase you use.

Scott Harvey, a respected winemaker whose Amador County Vineyard 1869 comes from America's oldest zinfandel vineyard, talked about ZAP's last hour, when many people are in party mode, flirting, drinking and shouting for every dropped glass.

"You have to be here," Harvey says, "but near the end it's just a horde. Nobody's listening. I told one of our guys, 'Watch this,' and I told a guy tasting, 'We actually take rats and soak them in the wine' and he just said, 'That's really good.' "

ZAP starts civilly enough at 10 a.m., when only people in the trade get in. Many are restaurant owners or distributors looking for new lines. For the Joneses this is a key period.

Lava Cap, in El Dorado County a bit east of Placerville, is like many wineries that are the soul of California and American wine. It was started in 1981 by Tom's parents, David and Jeanne, and has lots of family involved, including Tom, his brother Charlie (who manages the vineyard) and their wives.

They make 20,000 cases annually, which is substantial, and many wines are medal winners. But Lava Cap is a fraction of the size of some major wineries, and that means it has a fraction of their marketing and sales budgets. So the Joneses work hard to get their wines into restaurants and stores, or to just get attention from wine drinkers.

That's one reason they pour their wines two, sometimes three, weekends a month – for free – at tastings and charity events, or at trade shows/wild parties like ZAP. Exposure is everything, even if it's to one taster at a time. Welcome to another less-than-glorious part of the wine business.

"It's a tight, tight market right now," Beth says. "Restaurants are squeezed, distributors are squeezed, stores are taking wine off shelves. Every winery is looking for every chance to get their story out, and to get people to taste them."

ZAP is one of those chances. Through the morning, there's a steady stream of pros, and Lava Cap shows well. Beth winningly asks person after person: "What can I tell you about Lava Cap?"

The crowd at their table is larger than those at the wineries around them, which says they've got some buzz.

Anthony Richardson, a well-dressed distributor from Scottsdale, Ariz., was moving quickly through the hall but stopped to taste all three Lava Cap zins, the Reserve, the Rocky Draw and the Spring House, which is new this year.

"I'm looking for new product," he tells me later, after moving through a few more wineries' tables. "I didn't know Lava Cap but a couple people mentioned them to me. I know the foothills make some great wines and theirs were very balanced. I'll think about them."

Even through the trade tasting, the pace gets wild at times. Then at 2 p.m., it's Katy unbar the door. The public tasting runs until 5 p.m., and starts with a rush from the hundreds of people who'd been lined up.

Beth and Tom hustle and smile and talk and pour. Beth is tall, blond and wears a casual leather jacket. She looks almost too classy for the chaos. Tom wears a light-colored striped shirt, which he admits is a tactical error. It has zinfandel spots all over it. Yet he is, as usual, genial and unfazed.

"I'm pretty confident people will like our wine, because I know how hard we work at it. But I really want to hear what people think," Tom says. "It's like market research. You need to listen to your customers."

If you can hear them.

For the next two hours, the Lava Cap table is never empty. Usually they have three to six people there, sometimes it's a dozen.

The most common question – a logical one from tasters facing the huge lineup of wineries – is "what's your favorite?" Sometimes Tom gets a look that's like he was asked his favorite child, but he says the Reserve is more moderate-bodied, the Rocky Draw is fuller-bodied, and the Spring House is a bit spicier.

Sharon and Gerry Hunt walk up and ask the perfect question for the Joneses. "Where should we start?" Sharon says. Beth takes them through the wines, explains the vineyards for each, asks what they think.

I catch the Hunts across the hall. They're from Portland, Ore., love zinfandel and are choosing wineries they didn't know in areas they like, such as the Sierra foothills.

"We hit a bull's eye with Lava Cap," Sharon says. "All three are the zins we like. (The Joneses) were friendly and open, too, but with us, it's all about the wine."

By the end, th Joneses worked through 38 bottles of wine, 400 to 500 tasters, and their voices. Within a week, they would get a handful of e-mails from tasters and at least one serious inquiry for a new account.

"This was exhausting," Beth says, nearing 5 p.m. "But it's rewarding. And it's fun to get such a good reaction."

A dropped glass out in the hall interrupts her with that signature thundering roar.

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