At Harvest Times, All Roads Lead to Napa

There’s a saying in the Napa Valley: “You can’t turn left onto Highway 29 on a Saturday.” Carolyn Martini, credited as originator of phrase, admits that you actually can make the turn . . . but adds, “You may have to turn your engine off for an hour until there’s a break in traffic.”

Martini, president of the Louis Martini Winery, is referring to the hordes of wine tourists that clog the Napa Valley’s major artery on weekends, and her saying is even truer today than it was when she first made it almost 15 years ago. And if you think weekends are bad in summer, try a Saturday during harvest season, which began two weeks ago.

The grape harvest, whether in Napa, Calif. or Lubbock, Texas, in Little Compton, R.I. or Mercer Island, Wash., seems to draw tourists the way picnics draw yellow jackets. People are enthralled by the sight of grapes being dumped into huge steel contraptions that grind them up into a mash, spitting out the stems underneath, and watching grape juice slop all over the workers’ shoes.

What winemakers would like you all to remember at this time of year, as you jam your way into even the tiniest of dirt roads and pack sardine-fashion into tasting rooms to sip their nectar, is that harvest time in wine country is not an idyll of peasants humming little ditties as they prance from vine to vine, glasses in hand.

On the contrary, it’s serious business. When grapes are ripe, they have to be picked right then--there’s no alternative. Waiting can only create disaster, and sitting in traffic is no way to make a wine.

So winemakers find ways to work around the hordes. They realize that harvest time is not only a time of 20-hour days and frayed nerves, but also a time when tourism is nutso.

And if you are contemplating a visit to the wine country in harvest season (and there are literally hundreds of wine country areas in the 45 states that have wineries), you’ll need to do the same. Here are some tips for sane touring of wine country regions

* Make reservations. With so many people touring wine country areas at this time of year, don’t expect to pop into the local eatery at 7 p.m. and just ask for a table. You might be asked which day you were asking for. The same goes for hotels. Most wine country regions are rural and local hotels and inns rarely have sufficient space to accommodate peak-period traffic. Book early or be prepared to drive quite a ways after the tasting rooms close to find any lodging at the last minute. This also goes for winery tours. Call ahead to make sure you can take one.

* Call wineries and ask for lodging recommendations. A few wineries even run their own bed-and-breakfast inns.

* Fill up gasoline tanks often. Because of the rural nature of wine country areas, most are not chock-full of gas stations, so keep the tank full. And remember that steep mountain roads eat up gas faster than flat ones. An admonition regarding use of restrooms is appropriate here too.

* Start the day by driving to the “other end” of a wine country. Most folks drive toward wine country regions from the largest nearby metropolitan area and stop at the first tasting room they see. A better strategy is to start earlier than the others and drive to the farthest end of a wine region to begin touring, thus avoiding crowds.

* Tour no more than four or five wineries in a day. Touring wineries is more for learning about styles, production methods and grape-growing, not mass tasting orgies. Since tasting rooms usually open at 10 a.m., there may be time to see two properties in a region before lunch and two after lunch, before the typical closing time of about 4:30 p.m. Even with a picnic lunch, five wineries is about all anyone should attempt.

* Be prepared to pay for tasting. A decade ago, few wineries had the nerve to charge for tasting, but the sheer volume of tourists today has forced many wineries to charge. Many charge you for the tasting room glass, logo-painted, that you may keep. Others permit the charge to be applied to the purchase of wine. (See sidebar, this page.)

* Inquire about special winery-only wines. Many wineries offer special bottlings of young wines or re-releases of older wines only at the tasting room.

* Ask about special tastings. Some wineries have special tasting areas where you may sample older wines. There is usually a charge for sampling these wines, but bottles are almost always in perfect condition and the person leading the tasting is almost always quite knowledgeable. For instance, the Napa Valley’s Schramsberg Vineyards, one of the world’s great wineries, offers a three-glass tasting of older sparkling wines, served by a member of the Davies family or the winemaking team.

* Leave room in your luggage for wine you’ll buy. Few people tour wine country without taking some of the local stuff home. Even if you plan to buy only a little wine when you go, it’s hard to pass up a great wine when it’s just been tasted, it tastes great, and the winery says it’s available only here, only now.

* Use the spit bucket. They call them tasting rooms, not saloons, and the spit bucket is there to permit you to experience the taste of a wine without taking in so much alcohol that subsequent tastes are wiped out by palate fatigue. Don’t worry about decorum: Tasting room personnel are more respectful of those who use the spit bucket than those who simply quaff the entire pour.

* Eat a good breakfast. Even those who expectorate all of what they sample will still absorb some alcohol. If you taste and spit 20 wines, pretty soon you’ll feel the alcohol. It’s better to start the day with proteins that buffer the effects of residual alcohol.

* Read the local newspaper. Not only do local papers give you the flavor and tenor of the region, but it’s the place where you’ll find notices of local events that the larger papers may have missed.

* Take notes. No matter how good you think your memory is, when you leave the tasting room, little details of the wines you liked best begin to slip away. Was it the 1993 or the 1992 that you liked? Was it the Reserve or the regular? Buy a pocket-size notebook and keep tabs on all wines, good and bad. A simple five-point rating system works well: 5 for great, worth the exorbitant price; 4 for excellent; 3 for good enough to slug down; 2 for “only if the water tastes worse,” and 1 for “they should pay me to drink this garbage.”

* Ask questions. Tasting room personnel say they want inquisitive guests, not Silent Sams who sip and split.

* When dining out, buy the local wine. You don’t go to New Zealand and order German wine, so when in Paso Robles, order wine from Paso Robles. Local restaurant owners usually try to support wineries that support them, thus the wines are usually good, not to mention good values.