Just another day in paradise! A friend of ours is a partner in an excellent new winery,
De Novo Wines, and hosted a harvest party this weekend. Oh what joy it is to live in the wine capital of America. We had the opportunity to help harvest 1000 pounds of Syrah grapes at the Apicella Vineyard. Herve and Ladd (sadly, Dana couldn't make the party this year) clearly love their work and sharing their joy with friends and family.
We met at the estate, parked in the emu/donkey/llama pen, grabbed tools and buckets, walked a short, but incredibly picturesque way down to the actual vineyard where, after a short explanation of how they judge when to pick the grapes (something about Ouija boards and refractometers) we all set to work harvesting the juicy, ripe grapes. Many hands make short work and we were done in less than an hour, but even in that relatively short time, us city folk were shiny with sweat and obviously not used to "hard" labour.
Next step: measuring and crushing the grapes. The grapes were dumped into the crusher (this really looked like a re-purposed hot tub) and we all scrubbed our little feeties super clean and dipped them in a disinfecting solution, then whoopie jumping into the tub!! After a lot of laughing, stomping, drinking and more laughing the juices were literally flowing. Ladd claims all the "Joie de vivre" adds spirit to the wine and I totally believe him. All in all, this was a super duper day.
Just another day in paradise! A friend of ours is a partner in an excellent new winery, De Novo Wines, and hosted a harvest party this weekend. Oh what joy it is to live in the wine capital of America. We had the opportunity to help harvest 1000 pounds of Syrah grapes at the Apicella Vineyard. Herve and Ladd (sadly, Dana couldn't make the party this year) clearly love their work and sharing their joy with friends and family. 
