The grape trucks are rumbling again this morning in Sonoma County. It looks like a good harvest so I thought I’d reprise a column from a couple of years ago. Hope you enjoy:
Autumn is a great time of year here in Sonoma County. Downtown Healdsburg (and I mean “downtown” in the small town sense) is pretty quiet. The summer tourist crowds are long gone. But the major thoroughfares actually get even more crowded with the beginning of school in September. Not long after that the backroads start to hum with activity. I can hear the rumble of trucks outside my window, on our usually quiet road, every morning starting in the wee hours, well into October.
It’s harvest time, crush as the locals call it. Everyone is in a hurry to get their precious grapes pressed into wine, once that perfect moment has come to gather the fruit and ferment their natural sugars into the cash crop on which the local economy largely depends.
Come on, I’ll give you a tour! Bring your bike and an instrument. We’ll go for a ride and pick some later. Hey, nice bike. Really, I mean that. Honestly, a thirty year old Schwinn will be fine for today’s ride. Even if it looks like it hasn’t been ridden for ten years and you haven’t ridden for five. Those high tech carbon fiber/titanium bikes the locals ride would be overkill for the ride we’re doing today. On the other hand, the instrument you brought is truly impressive. At least you have your priorities right.
Okay, tires are pumped. Let’s go. The first part’s downhill as we freewheel into the Dry Creek Valley. There’s a layer of fog and it gets thicker as we descend. We’re glad we have our jackets on. Hang a left at the Dry Creek Store onto Lambert Bridge Road. We’ve passed a couple of wineries already but none of them are open for tasting yet. They’re busy trying to get a product made for the coming year. Come ten o’clock they’ll probably hope nobody shows up at the tasting room to sample last year’s product. They have enough to do now.
We keep pedaling over gently rolling terrain. Heading south on West Dry Creek Road we see a string of fellow bicyclists heading out from Madrona Manor. They’re part of a tour group and they pay big bucks to come out here on their vacations to enjoy the cycling. We’re warmed up and we pass them all easily, but not before chatting with them a bit and getting a lift from their excitement at being here. I’m sure Ohio is nice too.
It’s all fields and vineyards now. A truck rattles by at a good clip. The driver’s got empty bins and is hurrying back for another load to take to the crusher. Later a similar truck passes by very slowly, without a rattle. That one’s full of grapes and the driver is trying very hard not to damage any of the precious load.
You have to be careful going for a bike ride during crush. It’s certainly not for the squeamish. But it’s worth it. You’re not in a hurry. Whenever a truck approaches, just pull off the road if you feel the need for extra safety. And keep your eyes open. The weather is glorious this time of year, and by October, some of the grape leaves are starting to change color. You can see the same colors in the leaves that you’ll see in the wine when you pop the cork next year.
It’s interesting to look at the vines themselves as you ride along. They use all sorts of varieties of grapes in the wine industry here: Zinfandel, Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Sangiovese, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, just to name a few. Zinfandel seems to be king in the Dry Creek Valley. You see the old vines that look like small gnarled trees wherever you go. It’s as if a bonsai master had spent his spare time roaming through the vineyards at night, just to make the fields look their most aesthetic.
The Cabernet vines are thinner and usually carefully pruned so that they grow along trellises which can be harvested efficiently. During crush you can see anything from huge combines sawing through the fields to skilled Mexicans with curved knives deftly moving through a vineyard filling crate after crate with wine grapes the company hopes to make into its next gold medal winner.
Hey, what’s that resistance I feel on my tires all of a sudden? I hope I don’t have a flat. You hear a sticking sound as you ride along. You look down and you see a dark stain on the road. It’s grape juice, leaked out by truck after truck that has passed along before. Inevitably some of the juice squeezes out from each load just from pressure on the ripe grapes at the bottom. You might go for miles through such a juice road stain during the peak of the crush in Sonoma County. And when you ride by fields where the remains of crushed grapes have been deposited, you are overpowered by the smell of grape juice.
We turn onto my road and wheel up into my driveway. What a great ride! I fell so lucky to be living here. I can go on that same ride those Ohio tourists planned their vacation around any day I want to, right from my own driveway. Glad you could join me. Now it’s time to pick a few tunes. What should we play? Here are a few suggestions:
1) Little Glass of Wine
A girl gets murdered by her jealous lover, who poisoned her drink (OK, so maybe that one wouldn’t actually go over all that well for a tasting room of enophiles)
2) Down in the Willow Garden
Here’s another one that Ed Neff would probably not choose to sing to a bunch of Sonoma County wine connoisseurs: “I had a bottle of burgundy wine which my true love did not know. And there I poisoned that dear little girl down by the banks below.”
3) The Crossroads Bar
The protagonist ordered sweet red wine and “drank it down”. In Bill Monroe’s version at least, nobody gets murdered.
4) Ocean of Diamonds
“Some people like champagne out under the stars. While others drink wine leaning over a bar.”
This one by Jimmy Martin works well for Sonoma County (but better not try his song: I’ll Drink No More Wine).
And another song you wouldn’t want to try at your next Sonoma County gig would be Dark as a Dungeon (“like a fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine”)
5) Shady Grove
“Wish I had a glass of wine and bread and meat for two. I’d set it out on a golden plate and give it all to you.”
6) Traveling Down the Road
Uncle Dave Macon would have gone over well in Sonoma County with lyrics like: “Wish I was in heaven, settin’ in a chair. Glass of wine in each hand, talking to my dear.”
7) Rise When the Rooster Crows
More from Uncle Dave. “The duck chews tobacco and the goose drinks wine.” I guess I’d be more of a goose.
8) From Earth to Heaven
I think Uncle Dave might have had a drinking problem. In today’s world, I wonder how long he would have kept his driver’s license with lyrics like these: ” I remember the year when I began to haul, it was during the summer time. Back in those good old days, you could find whisky, beer and wine. I’d walk right into every saloon. I was strictly up to time. Never was a night that I didn’t drive home, wouldn’t pull me the end of the line.”
9) Bear Creek
“Way up on Bear Creek, the water tastes like cherry wine” (Carter Family)
10) T For Texas
Jimmie Rodgers likes the same taste in his water.
11) My Rough and Rowdy Ways
And Jimmie for years and years “rambled, drank my wine and gambled.”
12) Hesitation Blues
“If the river was whisky and the branch was wine. You could see me bathing just any old time.” (that sure sounds like Charlie Poole to me)
13) You’ve Got to Stop Drinking Shine
Gid Tanner knew what kind of alcohol old time and bluegrass fans prefer: ” The state has cut this whiskey out. But they let you have a little wine. Most everybody’s getting on a drunk and they must be drinking that shine.”
14) The Cuckoo
Now here’s a bird very well suited to Sonoma County: “She never drinks water. She always drinks wine.”
15) Two More Bottles of Wine
This set doesn’t all have to be traditional Bluegrass. I’ve heard this one played in Bluegrass jams and it plays well. We could go on and on of course, especially if we include country tunes. Wine Colored Roses, Watermelon wine, etc. We can jam all night with this kind of stuff. Jam all night but be sure to start the whiskey tunes before breakfast.
