The Crush

The crush is going on all around us here in wine country, but all we ever see is the big trucks hauling the bins of grapes from the vineyard to the winery. Today we had a chance to participate in the process and it was really fun. Our former landlords and friends, Kelly and Maureen invited us to join them at a winery not far from us that specializes in taking other peoples' grapes and helping them process them through all the steps involved in making wine.

We drove up the mountain a few blocks from our house, arriving at a property with a stunning view and all the equipment required to crush , destem, ferment and bottle other peoples' grapes. Kelly and Maureen, another family with their own vineyard and all the lovely people from the King's Hill Cellars assembled to drink coffee, eat cinnamon rolls, admire the view and await the delivery of our respective loads of grapes. When the trucks arrived, the bins were transferred to the scales and then tipped onto the conveyor belt which sent the grapes down a chute into the destemmer. From there, they traveled onto a moving, vibrating belt. We lined up on either side and hand picked out the remaining stems and unripened green grapes before they were dumped into a fermentation bin.

It felt like a scene from "I Love Lucy" as five of us , who had only met each other a few minutes earlier, lined up on either side of the belt and fished for stems, pushing mounds of semi crushed grapes this way and that, grabbing stems before they moved away from us. As we began to get into they rhythm of things, we were able to have conversations with our fellow stem pluckers, occasionally dropping handfuls of stems into their shoes or down the backs of their necks. By the time we had plucked our way through three bins full of grapes, we had sweet, sticky juice dripping off our elbows and falling onto our sandal clad feet, and we were best friends with our fellow pickers next to and across from us.

When the conveyor belt finally stopped, we adjourned to the shed for the lesson on measuring and determining the right amount of sulfites to add to each bin. Some had been done while we were still on the assembly line, and were already starting to bubble in the fermenters.

After a wonderful lunch on the deck, we had to take our leave so that we could make a pit stop at home to change our shirts and wash the juice off our elbows, before driving down to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal to pick up my brother and his wife. We have driven by the slightly futuristic looking terminal hundreds of times, but had never ventured in. It was not exactly welcoming. There are about ten plastic seats, all in the direct blast of the 95 degree sun in which to wait. We found a somewhat shaded alleyway, and leaned against the wall while we waited for the ferry to dock

Thank goodness for the air conditioning in our car, and in our house, which we had had the foresight to turn on during our brief pit stop, and for the delicious take-out from our favorite pizzeria to which we repaired for dinner.

It has been a busy, and thoroughly entertaining day.