So far we have fermented 100 lbs. of Amador County Syrah grapes, purchased from Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley. They came in with good, although slightly acidic numbers: 26.2 brix, 3.32pH and TA .82. We are now awaiting the final batch: 100lbs of Sangiovese… someday they’ll arrive, someday…

photo curtesy of Gregg Carlstrom

Yesterday was the always fun, Oak Barrel Winecraft pre-harvest celebration in Berkeley, California. A large crowd showed up, bringing some fine (and not so fine!) homemade wine.

At this event, when you taste a bottle of wine, you never know what is going to go splashing around on your palate—which is one of the things that makes this event so much fun. Even when it’s awful, you know that someone tried hard to make good wine but something went horribly wrong and now it’s your turn to do the post mortem and diagnosis the problem. Some winemakers even request written feedback on their problem wines.

We received an enthusiastic response to our 2006 Zinfandel. Comments tended to say that it had a nice round flavor and an excellent mouth feel.

Some added excitement occurred when a small band of crusty punks showed up. After drinking some wine and enjoying some of the smoked salmon and short ribs, they were asked to leave. The lead female then decided to show her displeasure by throwing her wine glass to the ground. Shards of broken glass scattered on the ground as the crusty cadre stormed out. When they walked past the crowd one winemaker sarcastically remarked “They must be PUNKS!” and everyone chuckled. Homer and another man went after them but the punks disappeared down San Pablo before they could catch up to them.

Despite the small incident with the hooligans (which was actually kind of exciting: Winemakers vs. Crusties!) the event was a great celebration of the truly punk, DIY spirit of making wine at home and sharing it with new friends.

(photo curteosy of zstephen)

According to the blog, Fermentation (citing an article from The Press Democrat) it is illegal for home wine makers to have contests or tastings. An outdated provision of the home wine making exemption limits even the sharing of home made wine—along with making home wine making contests at state and county fairs illegal. Currently lawmakers and industry groups are working to correct this law. Let’s hope they fix this outdated absurdity soon so important events are not interrupted.

We re-designed our site. Enjoy!