Well, not in Napa Valley but in Argentina and in other parts of the southern hemisphere. We are in the Mendoza wine country of Argentina where the harvest has been taking place since the beginning of February and will continue through April. We were fortunate to see harvesters working the vineyards at two wineries we visited, and we also had a very nice chat with a small vineyard owner who explained in detail the way harvest works in Argentina.

The crew consists of workers from the northern part of Argentina who spend the entire agricultural season traveling from crop to crop. For the wine industry, crews can be hired from an agency or as individuals. When a winery uses an agency, they pay the agency a fee and pay each worker by the amount he or she picks. Smaller wineries may have their own crew that they hire individually. These workers are also paid by each bin they fill. There are no unions, so all the workers can do is walk off a job to try and negotiate a better rate with the winery. Read the rest of this entry »

We are in Mendoza wine country for one week and then crossing the Andes to visit wineries in Chile for another week. We have visited several wineries both big and small in Mendoza. It is interesting to note how proud the Argentine wine industry is of their wine and how confident they are that their wines measure up to the best from Napa Valley and the rest of the wine world.

The three most important wine regions of Mendoza are the Lujan de Cuyo, the Maipu Valley, and Valle de Uco. The length of these three regions is about the same distance as from Napa to Calistoga. There are some 1000 wineries in Mendoza but only ten percent are open to the public. The Mendoza wine country is east of the Andes Mountains, making the area very much a desert climate. Elevations range from about 1000 feet to as high as 4500 feet in some of the vineyards of the Valle de Uco.

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Stonehedge Winery is one of those wineries I mentioned in my last post that I referred to as a “Tasting-Room-Only Winery. “They do not own any vineyards and custom crush at a nearby facility. The owners of the winery are the Shahabi Brothers, whose family immigrated to California from Iran and began a successful wine import business specializing in French Wines. The brothers live in the Napa Valley where they oversea the business of the Stonehedge Winery. The tasting room is comfortable and spacious and located at 1004 Clinton Street in Napa.

Most of the tasting rooms in the town of Napa are boutique wineries, with the majority of the wines made from the Napa Valley. Stonehedge is different on two counts. The grapes are sourced from a variety of California wine region, not just the Napa Valley. The wine production is more on a larger scale than a boutique winery with a wide distribution and three different series of wine labels. To give you an idea of how big their distribution is, several of Stonehedge wines are currently found in over 200 Trader Joe’s stores across the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m totally amazed at the number of tasting-room-only wineries that have set up shop in the Napa Valley. I’m not talking about a wine bar, but a pure tasting room where visitors can come in and taste small amounts of wine just as you would at a real winery. In the town of Napa there is Ceja, Stonehedge, Rocca, Gustavo Thrace, Mason Cellars, and a few others that represent several small boutique wineries.

If a winery is located off the beaten path were hoards of tourists are unlikely to travel, a tasting room in the downtown area is a good option. The same can be said for many of the “new breed” of wineries that do not have “brick & mortar” businesses. They do not own any vineyards or winemaking equipment. They source their grapes and custom crush. The tasting room in town makes the most sense to showcase their wines. Read the rest of this entry »