Wine Lover: Harvest time returns to local vineyards

I always say there is no better time to get out and discover wine culture than during harvest. There are only a couple of weeks out of every year when most of the grapes are being picked. In Santa Cruz County, it looks like this time is going to be in the middle of October.
October is late for harvest, but it has been another cool year, and the storm in June set things back a way, too.
During harvest, wineries go from mellow to full throttle. It’s a rush to get all your grapes in and fermenting. The vintner will sometimes work two weeks straight to make sure things go smoothly. A mistake during harvest can be devastating later on in the life of a wine.
For the consumer, there is no better time to get out and explore some local wineries. Most wineries will have vats of grapes fermenting on site, and if you’re really lucky, you might catch them on a “crush” day, when the grapes are coming in and being crushed and destemmed. You might have seen fermentation tanks or crusher-destemmers before, but it is so much more enriching to see them at the one time of year when they’re in action.
Best of all, if you can find a friendly staff member, they will usually let you punch down the cap of skins on top of the fermenting juice, or maybe even pitchfork grapes into the crusher. If the staff will allow it, try tasting the wine while it’s fermenting. It is warm and somewhere between wine and grape juice. Depending on where it is in the fermentation process, it might still be quite sweet or mostly alcoholic.
If you are interested in learning more about the wine-making process, there will be a harvest class Oct. 9, a Sunday, as part of the Surf City Vintners’ Surf City Wine University.
When I first heard about the class, I was excited both to be a part of it and to promote it. The class will meet at Surf City Vintners and then will be taken to a local winery in the midst of its harvest (most likely Vine Hill Winery or Silver Mountain Vineyards). Students and guests will get hands-on instruction as the grapes are picked in the vineyard and the fermentation process is started at the winery. This is a rare chance to take a trip into the wine country and see it from the winemaker’s perspective.
For more information on the tour, visit www.thesantacruzexperience.com or www.surfcityvintners.com.
If you can’t attend the class but you are an avid wine drinker, then you owe it to yourself to get out and experience harvest time in whatever capacity possible. Remember, this only comes around once a year. Enjoy it while you can!
 Austin Twohig is a certified sommelier and partner in The Santa Cruz Experience, which conducts winery tours in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Contact him at au****@th********************.com.