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Teem up to make wine from 1,340 lbs. of Zinfandel grapes early October.
by Jack Ridley
Bill S., Charlie B. and Jack R. graciously accepted this years offer to harvest the grapes from the Castoro Winery in Paso Robles. With Steve D. coordinating the details we took off from the Oceanside park 'n ride at 7:00 a.m. (after waiting for each other 2 cars away in the parking lot for 30 min.).
The usually O.C./L.A. freeway grind but a couple Breakfast Jacks and belts of coffee, we were cruising in Bill's mega studly Dodge Rammer diesel truck passing chevy and ford wimps all the way up the Grapevine.
| Castro Cellars
Address: Phone: (805) 467-2002
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Rolling into Paso around 1 p.m. we thought we impress the wine guys with classy stogies (cigars) so we picked up a bunch, stopped at a few wine tasting spots and headed to the winery (glowing and reeking).
This year we planned on harvesting Zinfandel for a change from the hearty Cab's of previous harvests.
We expected a possible 10% increase from last years price but not the shocking 30% surprise increase! Oh Sh#@! did I screw up! Well, after some major stink eyes from my partners, and a few tense moments of recalculations, we moved ahead with the mission . |
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We bag-stuffed in frantic, frenzied fashion, 1,300 lbs. of beautiful, sweet Zin grapes and headed home- at 6:30 p.m., over 4 hrs. behind schedule! Fueled by brain swelling, heart-thumping heavy metal music(?), we finally rolled into Steve D's crushing and pressing facility at 2:30 a.m., waking the neighborhood with truck rumblings and car alarms. We dumped many bags of already fermenting grapes in the garage, hosed down the truck and hit the perverbial hay- very hard. |
Steve and Debbie sponsored yet another crush and press event, with incredible eats and wines for the press party. We tasted previous years Cab. and they were fantastic. The waiting is sooo hard. Thanks (again) to the new parents for letting us trash their facility, and of course to my "grapest" buddies Bill and Charlie for giving up 2 days of their lives for "the cause". Some causes are just too important to miss and this was much more fun than work, right? See ya next year?!
Special Thanks To Bruce Smith of FOTB and Jack Ridley For Takeing The Pictures.
