Inside Sonoma

Grape growers, a non-nonsense bunch who don’t get the acclaim and press kits that their wine-making counterparts do, are a fun group to hang around. I realized this when I showed up to the 2009 Pruning Championships and noticed:

1. There weren’t any fancy SUVs or CUVs or whatever all yuppies drive here in wine country. Instead there were trucks. Big trucks, with big tires, and they smelled like dirt.
2. One of the biggest trucks had a bed full of donut boxes and and a cambro full of hot coffee. The sign next to it said this was donated by the local building supply company. It was all free.
3. In my old boots and frayed khakis and officially logoed company polo, I was the dressiest guy there.
4. Not only can these vineyard guys prune a block of pinot noir grapes in seconds, but they can also string together insults in Spanish towards their competitors that are down right poetic, if unrepeatable.

Every year vineyard workers from Sonoma County’s 13 AVAs (wine regions) compete to see who is the best at pruning the vines. Pruning vines is important because this is really when the business of making some awesome wine begins – years before the stuff comes out of the bottle. One of the reasons Sonoma County makes such great wine is that we have fantastic grapes. Over 30,000 acres of grapes, to be exact.

Photo: Press Democrat, Kent Porter

So this year the workers competed to see who could not only prune the fastest, but also was the most accurate and mindful of not cutting too much nor too little. The work done in February is what pays off in October when harvest rolls around and the grape clusters are uniform, and hanging at roughly the same heights, with just the right amount of leaf canopy to provide great grapes to make great wines.

This year’s winner was Fernando Guiterrez of Vinepro Vineyard Management. In addition to the $1,000 he won, and the basket-full of swag, Guiterrez was captured in an awesome photo by Press Democrat photog Kent Porter, carrying his happy son in celebration.

In the “non-professional” contest, which pits vintners and vineyard managers against each other, the Russian River Valley team took top honors, besting Alexander, Sonoma and Knights Valley. Ulises Valdez of Valdez Family Wines, and a sought-after grower in his own right, celebrated the win with his Russian River Valley cohort, and reminisced when he took first in the contest as a vineyard worker back in 2003. (And he showed me his name on the plaque to prove it.)

After the awards, an awesome feast of carnitas, tortillas, beans and rice ensued accompanied by mariachi music on the terrace overlooking the Shone Farm in Forestville.

Truly, a marvelous Sonoma County day.