Sonoma Valley meets Cajun Prairie

Wine Country met Cajun Country last Friday night as one Eunice native returned to her hometown with fellow members of a Sonoma, Calif. “wine tasting group”.
Phyllis Hyland, hospitality manager for Meadowcroft Wines and graduate of St. Edmund Catholic High School, made the best of a five-day Louisiana tour with a stop in Eunice.
Hyland, along with 10 couples from Sonoma, made way to Rocky’s Cajun Kitchen restaurant for a heaping helping of Cajun culture with food and live music.
“They all wanted to experience a little bit of Cajun culture,” said Hyland. “So we came to Rocky’s and I told them that we were going to the Fais-Do-Do. And that they were going to
experience a Cajun dance party and then we were going to visit Marc Savoy in the morning (Saturday).”
Hyland said that the event was an inaugural field trip – which was entitled the “New Orleans and Cajun Country Experience” – that was a fun-filled, five-day adventure for the group.
The itinerary for the traveling wine connoisseurs saw them fly into New Orleans on Friday, then take a three-hour bus ride to Eunice. Following the Cajun music experience at
the Savoy Music Center, the group headed back to New Orleans – where they would join the Meadowcroft Krewe and winemaker Tome Meadowcroft for dinner at the Hotel Montelone.
But before getting lost in a Mardi Gras warm-up party in The Big Easy, the group experienced Eunice on a Friday night.
One group member said that some of the group had only met for the first time on the trip. The experience of Louisiana was a bonding one for a few of the folks from the West Coast.
“Eunice is great, the friendliest people I’ve ever been around,” said Sandy Waren, of Sonoma Valley, on Friday. “We wanted to see Phyllis’ hometown, that was important to us.”
Members of the group, including Hyland, began to tear up the dance floor, dancing to the sounds of the Jason Frey and Lagniappe band, who performed in Rocky’s new wing of the restaurant.
“I don’t come home very often,” said Hyland. “But when I do it’s wonderful and warm. And it’s great to see old friends who come out to see me and to have my family here with me. It’s ‘coming home’.”
She is the daughter of Beverly Aucoin and step-daughter of Red Aucoin.