Wine Country Sketches: Harvest in Calistoga

Editor’s Note: Cloverdale-based artist Richard Sheppard spent a year documenting life in Sonoma County’s vineyards, with the help of members of his wine tasting group. Today, Calistoga grape grower Vince Tofanelli shares the bustle of harvest in an excerpt from Sheppard’s book, “Impressions of Wine Country” (Qwerty Press, 2016).

The morning air is brisk at Vince Tofanelli’s Calistoga vineyard. Although the sun has yet to peek over the hills, the sky is on fire with oranges and reds. Already the baseball capped heads of grape pickers bob up and down above the vines. Everything is rush-rush.

Vince waves and walks over. “I can’t remember the last time a harvest seemed so promising,” he said. “The vines look vibrant, and the grapes are firm and ‘crunchy,’ which is great, because some years the berries can be sweet but soft.”

He pulls out a refractometer to test grape sugar levels. After squeezing a couple drops of zin juice onto the prism assembly, he holds the instrument to the light.

“Earlier today the Charbono was at 16 Brix, not yet ready to harvest. But the zinfandel’s at 26 Brix. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution. These are the grapes we’re picking this morning.”

Vince sets me to work picking leaves out of the full bins. Load after load of grapes are tossed into the bins, giving rise to a ripe, sweet smell. Vince’s mom walks behind the line of workers, marking on a clipboard as each bin arrives.

The sun finally crests the far hill, painting the valley floor golden. While extracting leaves, I notice the occasional lighter-colored grape bunch and wonder aloud why Vince lets those pass through.

He tells me he doesn’t mind a few “almost ripe” grapes, since the sugars in general are up.

Those grapes that aren’t quite “there” add acidity and complexity. Nor are the zin grapes uniformly black. Vince holds up a bunch so the sun shines through them. “Notice how bright red they are.”

Firm and tight

The fruit’s texture is rubbery, firm and tight. Small white spiders crawl out from between the berries, startled from being tossed about.

“These are good spiders.” Vince says. “They don’t bother the grapes and in fact eat bad bugs.”

As more help arrives, Vince relieves me from leaf picking duty and explains why grapes must be harvested so early in the morning.

“In the early morning, grapes’ sugar levels are stable, acid levels are better, and the cooler temperature aids fermentation. By afternoon, the vines shut down, and the fruit gets flabby. Come on, I’ll show you how to pick grapes.”

Holding a grape cluster with his left hand, he uses a sickle shaped knife to cut the berries off the vine.

After several more swift motions, every cluster has been removed, requiring just a few seconds to unburden a vine of its fruit.

Noble rot

On the next vine, Vince finds a bunch that’s shriveled and covered with fungus.

“Try smelling it,” he says. It’s vinegary, musty. “That’s what’s called ‘noble rot,’ and it’s caused by the botrytis fungus. If I was making a white dessert wine, this rot would be a good thing and would give the finished wine a honey character. But found on zin, noble rot is just rot.”

Another paradox of wine. Rotting fruit isn’t always a bad thing.

I take advantage of the lull to ask how Vince got into the business.

“I started as my grandfather’s assistant, in my 20s,” he says.

“By then he was less able to do the physical labor, so I helped out. In the process, I learned farming the traditional, Old World way, using the same methods my grandfather learned growing up in Tuscany.

“Though I was born and raised here in Calistoga, I spoke only Italian until I started school. The bus used to drop me off just down the street,” he says, pointing towards the Silverado Trail.

“These days, I hold onto a bit of the fruit from these 27 acres to produce about 1,000 cases of wine for my own label, Tofanelli Family Vineyards.

“What I struggle with these days, though, is whether to make a wine that’s consistent from year to year, or one that represents the vintage, using no special processing.

“I prefer the taste of the vintage, but each year the flavor profile changes.

Styles evolving

“Industry wide, wine styles seem to be evolving. Winemakers are throttling their wines back for greater subtlety and balance. For the last decade or so, winemakers have been picking later when the sugars are higher, which makes higher alcohol wines. Then they use more oak for balance, making even bigger, more powerful wines.”

After about two hours of picking with six vineyard workers, today’s harvest is done. Judging from what’s in the bins, he tells me the yield is probably four and half tons.

He covers the bin tops with a plastic tarp to help protect the fruit from the European Grapevine Moth, and we climb into his pickup.

It crawls slowly forward, like a trackless train gradually picking up speed as it struggles against the weight of fruit in the trailer. Turning onto highway 128, we head to Vince’s custom crush facility at Envy Vineyards.

“I used to feel melancholy and purposeless walking through the empty vineyards after harvest, even though it was great to sleep in,” he says.

“But I’ve gotten used to that, and now I’m able to let go and move on. So many things to prepare for next year.”

Contact Richard Sheppard at richard@artstudios.com.