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Crush is Crazy in Napa
I’ve often described wine country as being like Brigadoon, that mythical town that only wakes one day a year. For much of the year Napa and Sonoma isn’t quite a sleepy farming area, but it certainly likes to nap. That’s because the wine needs time to sleep, to age, to be gently topped off in the barrels to guard against too much oxygen, but quietly, because they are like sleeping babies.
Then the run up to crush takes place. Wine in the tanks is put into barrels; other wine is moved from barrels to bottles. The picking bins, the tanks and in fact everything is washed with steam and ozone enriched water. Cleanliness is one of the secrets of premium wine making. As the yeast works to convert the sugar to alcohol, carbon dioxide and heat you don’t want it competing with stray bacteria that do not produce such nice results. Later in the caves when they top off the barrels they wash the tops so that nothing can grow there in the splashed wine.
Then finally the grapes begin to arrive. This an exciting time, Brigadoon has woken up. One of the ways that you know this is happening is that there is barely any parking left for the customers. I was at Domaine Carneros the other day with a group of eight and all three parking lots were filled. But when we went to the tasting room there were plenty of open tables outside and the inside salon was empty.
Out on the crush pad they were dumping bins of Pinot Gris into the machines, pretty red and green grapes. So when you are visiting wine country during crush don’t assume the tasting room is busy just because it’s hard to find a place to park.
Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guides (Find them on Amazon), and owners of Amicis Tours which does both group and private excursions. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com. Their Apps can be found at http://www.sutromedia.com/apps.html
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