They're in the Napa-Carneros area today, at the southern end of a growing region cooled by breezes from the San Pablo Bay. On a clear day, you can see San Francisco from here. Grapes are plucked early while they're still cool, and this morning's work began at first light. The pickers work quickly, their curved blades a blur, stripping all the grapes from a vine in the time it takes me to sample a grape or two.
These are Chardonnay grapes, green with thick, tart skins and sweet, juicy meat. Schramsberg will harvest about 1,000 tons of grapes this year, and today's harvest of 75 tons (3 truck loads) is going quickly.
While the pickers finish their job, we take grape samples from areas soon to be harvested. Reynolds gets out his grape sampling kit: a while plastic grocery bag, felt tip marker and cutting shears. Slowing from his normal running pace while collecting, he talks while cutting clusters of grapes and dropping them into the bag. "Some people talk about root stock and clones, but I think location is the most important factor," he says. This is Reynolds' eleventh harvest at Schramsberg, where he has worked ever since graduating from the University of California at Davis.
We're sampling this morning in a low-lying, fertile area near Carneros Creek. Several years ago, Schramsberg got grapes from only one grower in this small area, but when they found those grapes consistently produced their best wines, they patiently acquired rights to more and more of the area over the next seven years until they now "own" most of the production from this little area of champagne grape-growing heaven.
When the grapes arrive at the winery, they are crushed in a special machine, designed to squeeze them as gently as if it were done by hand. This harvest includes 75 geographic "blocks" from 56 different growers, and the juice from every block is kept separate, then split to be fermented, yielding well over 100 individual batches of wine.
Once the juice has been bottled and fermented, Ramon Viera takes over. Viero is Schramsberg's "master riddler" Unlike whose job is to turn the bottles every day, each time tilting them slightly more 's neck. Viera's magic hands can riddle tens of thousands of bottles a day. When the riddling is complete, the solids are "disgorged" and a small amount of sugar, or "dosage" (rhymes with massage) is added, then the final fermentation takes place and the sparkling wine is finally ready for consumption.
Finally, we taste the finished products. The differences between their products are subtle and delicate, but Reynolds' wine vocabulary and knowledge help me appreciate each one. "What do you drink at home?", I ask. J. Schram, Blanc de Blanc and Brut Rose are his's favorites. We talk about the wine business in general, and Schramsberg's place in it as a high-end, specialty winery whose main competition is from France.
Back in the lab, where a bottle of wine serves as a doorstop, the results are in. The grapes we sampled are ready to pick. They will be available in Schramsberg's wines starting in 2004-2005.
About Schramsberg
Schramsberg is located at 1400 Schramsberg Road, between St. Helena and Calistoga off CA 29. They are open for tours and tastings by appointment. If you live in a state that allows shipping, you can buy Schramsberg's wines online.To learn more about Schramsberg winery, read Sparkling Harvest, The Seasons of the Vine by Jamie Davies, Jack Davies, Robert Louis Stevenson ISBN # 0-8109-1247-3.
