There’s a perpetual myth that
being a winemaker is sexy, cool, and that all a winemaker really does is jet
off to exotic locations to eat and drink with people who are impossible tanned,
flush with cash and orbit in the highest echelons of society. Seriously, if that’s
the case I’ll quite wine writing and start wine making. The reality is that
making wine is farming, it’s cleaning up crap, putting out fires (sometimes
literally) and hoping you make the correct decisions because you can’t go back
and fix a wine once you’ve screwed it up – and you only get one chance each
year. In Chris Weir’s new book, The Mad Crush,
he details one specific vintage at a small winery, Saucelito Canyon, located in the upper Arroyo Grande Valley in San Luis Obispo County. If you haven’t
heard of it you’re in good company as their story is somewhat typical of the
majority of wineries in the U.S. – that is to say, small, under the radar
family operations struggling with a shoestring budget. Compound that with where
Saucelito Canyon is located - in the middle of nowhere (I’m not kidding) - that
they ran off generators and that the vineyard was 115 years old when Weir was
working that harvest.
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| The historic vineyard |
Weir reflects on the 1995 vintage,
its shortcoming, problems, amusements and its final wine. I have a soft spot
for Saucelito Canyon and have been to the property many times, though it’s not
open to the public except for once each year.
#1: This is truly a historic vineyard, with own-rooted Zinfandel vines
planted in 1880, and there are very few of these old vineyards still around.
#2: This was one of the very
first places a young wine writer (me) ever visited and realized the breadth,
depth and complexity of wine.
#3 – This is where I got
engaged to my wife. I could wax poetic about the spiritual ambience I feel about
this property, but Weir mixes both the sentiment of the place and the unsexy
reality of out of date winemaking equipment quite well. “In loftier moments you
could call winemaking an art,” he writes. “Practically speaking it’s a craft. But
toward the end of the crush, there’s little time or energy left for elegant
thoughts. Your brain is foggy, your spine aches, your hands are scored and
stained red, and shit just needs to get
done.” Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. This is an easy read, a fun read,
and one that will set you straight on the glorious and grunt-laden world of
winemaking.
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| Me and the Mrs. at the vineyard, May/2015 |
The Mad Crush
by Sean Christopher Weir
158 pages, 15 photos
$11.95 Paperback, $9.95 Ebook
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