Crushpad Sept. 2007 Visit

We're back from our visit to Crushpad. In a word, it was wild. We sorted the grapes, tasted the fermenting zinfandel and sauvignon blanc, met some great people, and learned a lot. There's no substitute to seeing the process in person. If you didn't happen to tune in to the Crushpad Web cam on Friday, Sept. 7 while we were sorting the grapes, you can get a little taste of what it was like by watching us in a video Crushpad produced:

Crushpad Video of Marc and Lori

They are just about ready to press the zinfandel grapes today or tomorrow. Hopefully we can watch remotely via Webcam.

We'll follow up with details on the whole experience soon.

California Here We Come

Okay, it's early. Forgive us for the cheesy title. Lame as it may be, it's also accurate.

With a heat wave that's taken hold of Northern California (high 90s and 100 in most wine country regions), the grapes just can't wait any longer. Just about everything is ripe and ready to pick, including our Teldeschi zinfandel grapes.

After first being told on Wednesday morning that harvest would be in "a few weeks," that abruptly changed at 5 pm that same day when we were told they'd be picking on Friday--this Friday.

In less than a day Marc and Lori had managed to clear work schedules, find airfare, hotels, and put together a trip out to Crushpad in San Francisco to participate in the zinfandel crush. We are extending the trip out to do some wine tasting in Boonville and Sonoma and to visit our friends and gracious hosts for our San Francisco leg of the trip, Tim, Mechelle, and birthday boy Lucas (thanks again guys!). The only part of the plan that didn't come together is Katie and Ryan being able to join us. We'll be sure to take lots of photos to post when we return.

We aren't quite sure what we'll be doing out there, but you can get a taste for it if you tune into the Crushpad Web cam on Friday, 5pm EST. You may just see us at the sorting table or stomping away "I Love Lucy" style.