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Fact. It’s been exactly one year since I moved here and was fortunate enough to find myself hip-deep in grapes during last year’s harvest. I hadn’t lived until I got to stick pinky to arm pit into a vat of freshly picked grapes. As a consummate over-achiever, last year’s 2-day harvest stint with Kirk Venge was going to be a tough act to follow. But I’ve outdone myself, by somehow scoring a full-time gig as assistant grape sampler to Mr. King of the Grapes Venge himself (my nickname, not his, he is far too humble for such nomenclature). And it is the job of a lifetime, especially for someone who spends most waking hours and many late nights writing about and or sip’in on da’wine. But this year I am working for my wine which makes the bounty all the more sweet. While harvest was a little late in getting to the party this season, we are now bouncing off the grape walls. The run down to date. First it was cool when it should be hot, then hot when it clearly should be not. It rained, and threatened to follow on with some good old fashioned fall weather, but not before one last heat snap. What does this mean to those in the grape biz? Premature gray and balding hair, unless you’re like Venge, who appears to thrive under these sorts of conditions. Oh, forgot to mention. He was looking for a few more thrills so he decided to erect a new winery facility(Venge Vineyards) smack dab in the middle of harvest. Living on the edge never looked so good. Nor does the new winery and the grapes within. Note to self: learn some tips of the trade from this kid, he knows his stuff. A quick snapshot into my world, with more to follow in the upcoming weeks. It goes something like this: rise at dawn, wake up before the grapes do (pre-sun swelter), throw on a grape-stain resistant frock, pack up your hound, your grape cooler, some baggies for sampling, some water to rinse the juice, and an eye for the changing tides and tendencies of the grapes. At this hour you encounter only other grape-hounds and we are a mixed breed of a whole lot of something, none of which can be repeated to this PG crowd. We run through the fields, row by row, plucking a wide assortment of grapes from an unbearably long list of vineyards, that truth be told could do a much better job of labeling the vineyard rows and blocks. The iPhone GPS can get you only so far, then you have to rely on good old grape intuition, of which I had none initially, but now I am swimming in its sweet juices. As you are running through the field, fetching samples (methods are secret!), you often trip on dead and gangly vines that pierce skin like a blade, yet these road warrior scars never looked so good! You also get a pretty majestic view tooling down the 29 towards Napa during the wee hours of the morning. Gaggles of hot air balloons descend upon our valley, an idyllic vision if you ask me. If you don’t live here, what are you waiting for? This scene and these scents are like nothing you've ever witnessed, not to mention tasted. After combing the valley up a
nd down for grapes, I hit the chemistry lab (I knew I should have paid attention to this junk in school, who knew?) to put my plucky grapes through a battery of tests to reveal Brix, PH, TA. I sound like I know what I’m talking about, right? Just enough to be dangerous. Then my world class mission continues as I track down my master and deliver our classified info. All of which will tell us if the grapes are ready to move off the vine, or if they need to keep hanging on for dear life. And that my friends, my wine-swilling peeps, is where I will leave you for now. My skin is as thick with stick (grape juice), as it is with sweat. My ankles are beat up and scraped, the bags under my eyes are ever-increasing, yet I can’t wait to get up and do it all again, tomorrow! While slinging ads in New York and making movies in LA all had their glim and glamour, they’ve got nothing on this sweet deal. Check back for the latest rantings...live from the trail. May all your grapes be good ones!
I woke up today at 6:30AM to get the first pick of the season with Napa’s resident Pluck Meister – Kirk Venge and his posses of pickers. I was dubbed an honorary picker for the day, though I am angling for life-long picker status.The grapes, those lazy-bum-slackers, didn’t start to “wake up” until about 9:30/10ish. To their credit, once they did finally wake up they glowed and oozed of the sweetest sexiest juice you’ve ever smelt or tasted. And yes, grapes are sexy at any time of the day, unlike us human folk. I guess the grapes, like my former city self need a good night’s sleep in order to perform (performance=delivering bang up juice for some of the pluckiest wines in the world) at their peak. By the time the grapes woke up and joined the party we had already plucked 5 tons of those rolly polly suckers and the morning was still young. We were able to move that many mounds of grapes despite the Pluckster's tussle with Elvis, his S.O.B of a 4-wheele
r. At the crack of dawn Elvis went all “rock-king” ego-manic, by attempting to show The Pluck Meister (Kirk Venge) who was boss, by tossing him in an end-over the handle bars. King of the Grapes Venge soon went on to show Elvis that the King of Rock is dead now. All I heard was “Elvis is coming at me!”. I saw the buggy flipped to its side and Kirk standing on all 4s. He, like a very good cat, landed on his feet with a smile. Elvis did not look so hot. He got a swift kick in the tires and finally got to work, but was promptly renamed Matilda. She offered a smooth and stable ride through the grape fields as we picked and plucked like there was no tomorrow. She became our chariot out in the field, hauling grapes to the people. The Pluck Meister’s
wine phone rang no less than 30 times during our pickfest, all before the average Joe had even bothered to get out of bed. I trust I have wet your whistle enough to get out of bed and get yourself a glass of wine. I’m gritty, grimy, sweaty and sweet all at the same time. One lick confirmed that I taste good today. I blame it on the grapes. That’s all for now folks. Tomorrow will be another day of wine country heaven, a breed like no other. You haven’t lived until you’ve plucked a grape and had the insane good fortune of being ensconced in the sweet smell of freshly picked grapes.
Pinch me. Pinch me again. Kick me. Kick me hard. Shove me. Knock me over. Drop a wine bottle on my head. I am awake. This is my life. I am not dreaming. I had the very good fortune of falling onto the wine trail during harvest with none other than Kirk Venge. I know they are always saying that Brad Pitt is super nice and Megan Fox, ok, bad example, not as nice. George Clooney, good looking, charming, sexy, funny and wow, nice guy. And Bruce Springsteen, super sweetie, accomplished musician, wizard of sound, financially solvent, tune-making genius that has spanned the decades and still continues to churn out popping music year after year, from one decade to the next. Sort of like Bono, but without the burly Irish accent. I bring all this up because I predict a similar path for Mr. Venge - only vino instad of music, though I hear he belts out some kicking tunes at Anna's after a night of bocce. While I don’t really posses authentic crystal ball caliber skills despite what my former articles might lead you to believe, I do have a mighty powerful gut instinct about these sorts of things (I knew that the Internet would have great promise one day!). So I will go out on a wine branch and predict that Kirk Venge, winemaker, everyman’s good guy appeal, may just be the Springsteen of the Napa Valley wine scene (if your not a Springsteen fan – insert another legend). Year after year from as far back as his days in diapers he has been steadfastly building his cred, honing his winemaking skills, and surpassing many of his peers (young and old) in the process. And I hate to bring age in the picture, but I am old enough to do so. Most guys that I know that are his age are still trolling city streets looking for America’s ne
xt top model and the “new” Jagermeister bomb. Instead of succumbing to such a fate, Kirk has quietly laid down the bones (wine vines) and added the fleshy grapes on top to produce and make smashing wine, up and down and all around this valley. For this installment of my “day in the life of a wine master” I will dub him the Pluck Meister, for now, knowing that his nickname will change as we transcend into the different segments of the wine making process. The rain has slowed things down just a tad so I escaped picking grapes today, much to my own devastation. But we did something that I could argue was just as fascinating. We galloped from vineyard to vineyard, region to region (because he lays claim as the resident wine maker for vineyards all over town) plucking a grape here, a grape there, a grape just about everywhere, all in the sport of “sampling”. In layman terms that’s taste testing grapes to determine how close those roly poly delights are to being ready to be picked. Some will tell you that sampling and making the perfect wine is all about science. How many brix, how much acidity, tannins, yada, yada, yada. Others kick it more old school style by relying strictly on the good old fashioned taste buds. A slurp here, a gobble there, a suck there, all to get an assessment on how close those plumpsters are to being prime for the picking. But for the Pluck Meister (keep up! it’s code for Kirk Venge for Christsake!) it’s a hodgepodge of many things, including a smattering of science plus a whole lot more. I was lucky enough to watch him squash grapes, baggie them, preen juice, and then dump a little bit of many things into some beakers, followed on by a thorough examination of said contents underneath a winemakers microscope gadget. That process was more interesting than the sum total of one-too-many years in my high school and collegiate science programs. And while all of that business is well and good, he says a lot of it comes down to instincts as to “when” prime-time picking hour has arrived. The key to good wine is the grapes, right? Even I know that much. But according to the Pluckster it actually comes down to “getting the pick” (my translation: part science, part instinct, part magic) as he calls it. Maybe my picky nature will finally serve me in life? His “getting the pick” has garnere
d him a fruitful wine career for many years to come. The secrets to his "picking" mojo are going to stay between him and his happy hound Lucy, for now. It is sort of like good hair. Either you have it or you don't. You can't really teach it to grow hip and stylish, it just is. I hope I have made you salivate, or perhaps caused you to seriously consider a mid-life career change to the field of wine making, or, if nothing, else maybe I have enticed you to open up your mind, your wallet, and your palate to slurp some wine, or at a minimum to pop open your keyboard to learn a bit more about the making of that sinful delight we call wine. Today’s ramblings represent about one (1) hour of a day in the life with the Pluck Meister. I don’t want to give away all his secrets in one post. So stayed tune. I dare you. I challenge you. I invite you to pinch yourself. When you confirm that you are alive and awake and not dreaming with the sandman, log on and get your winemaking fix for the day at Wacky WineSense. Come along for this wild grape-filled ride as Kirk and I “chase grapes” all harvest long (his words not mine, how thrilling does that sound?) You’ll be glad you did. And if I am worth the weight of my electronic pencil you’ll learn a thing or two about this glorious time of year we call harvest in the Napa Valley. Fall is life changing on the East Coast, just another day in LA, spellbounding in the Rockies, and well,l I have run out of references, but here in The Valley fall is a snap of time that transports you to somewhere you will never want to leave, in smells alone.
