I attended a grape stomp party yesterday, which resulted in me sleeping for most of the day when I wasn't out drinking. I got to try 4 different wines and hang out with some cool folks. And stomp grapes.
Stomping is actually a fairly efficient method of turning whole bunches into juice. Within half an hour, the whole barrel was juice, with around 15 people tromping around at a time. That comes to about 8 man-hours to juice 50 cases worth of wine. Wine sells at wholesale for, say, $5 a bottle for a basic red blend, so at 6 bottles to the case, that means $1500 of gross revenue to the winery. Actually paying someone minimum wage to stomp would be less than $100 of that, and the rest is available for rent, bottling, bottles, and paying for the grapes. Or, of course, you can just invite all your buddies over, have them bring the food, and throw a big party. That gets your stomping done for free, and you just have to give everyone (ie, those 15 people) a bottle (or even a case, if you have multiple vats to take care of) of last year's product.
Reviews:
Riesling - Bernardo's Reisling is one of my favorites. It's lightly bubbly, with a sharp peppery taste. It goes well with the cheese plate appetizer.
Chardonnay - was not very memorable. A little buttery.
Burgandy - A nice strong red, which paired well with the tri-tip and veggies. They cook their peppers & zucchini in a style I would call grilled & chilled.
Sirah - Very drying in the mouth (even though that isn't what "dry" wine means). Paired ok with the suggested chocolate, but very well with cheesecake. Quite nice.
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