okegawa blog

Things that Napa Wine Country Has to Offer

Journeying over to the famous Napa Valley for a weekend of Napa wine tasting can be a memorable experience all-around. Not only is the prestigious wine growing country home to hundreds of vineyards and wineries, it also boasts breathtaking panoramas wherever you turn to look, much to the delight of tourists that come here for the first time.

The Options of Getting to / around Napa Valley

The key ingredient to a truly enjoyable Napa wine tasting trip is proper research, so before embarking on such a journey, make sure you weigh all your options carefully. For instance, if you don’t want to drive your way there yourself, you may want to check out some of the group tours available.

Upon arrival, if you wish to explore the region in greater depth and at your own leisure, it may be a good idea to rent a car, as this gives you the best freedom of movement around the countryside scenery. There are many things to plan, so for a guaranteed quality time during your trip, make sure you take care of all the details long before coming here.

If you’ve never been to Napa Valley before, reserving a seat on the Napa Wine Train is one of your best options. Joining in the Napa Wine Train ride lets you escape those crowded access roads, gives you the chance to watch the countryside landscape while sitting comfortably aboard, not to mention it allows you to taste a wide range of award-winning vintages alongside delicious gourmet meals.

Traveling Alone

While Napa Valley does make a good destination for couples and for families, sometimes it’s better to come here on your own. Doing so allows to take your time and stay at your favorite vineyards long enough to meet the winemakers and learn more about wine making.

To get a good grasp of the whole process of making vintages and personalized wine, it is advisable to begin your trip in Calistoga and gradually make your way to Yountville.
Traveling with the Family

If you want to bring your family along, take your time and find out which wineries cater for entire families and the rates they perceive. To make sure your little ones won’t be feeling left out during the trip, look for wineries and locales that provide specific family-focused entertainment, as well as other tourist attractions that are suitable for children.

Napa and Sonoma Valleys are quite ok in this respect, although most trips here can be expensive for families. That said, a more economical alternative is the Northernmost California Missions program, which besides providing kids with plenty of entertainment, encourages them to glean some knowledge about the region as well.

Conclusion

Visiting Napa Wine Country is a great way to follow in the footsteps of the famous winemakers here and to experience the magic of winemaking as taught by the finest names in the branch. Whether you are an aspiring winemaker wishing to pick up the secrets to making noble personalized wines, a wine enthusiast, or simply a tourist seeking to witness the beauty of the place, don’t miss out on the opportunity to visit Napa Valley!

White wines are typically pressed as whole clusters and then just the juice ferments and the skins and stems are discarded. There are several options to destem white grapes and leave the juice in contact with the skins for a while, which can add palate weight, and flavor to the wine. Then there is the rare situation where you destem the grapes and ferment the wine in contact with the skins all the way through fermentation. This will likely yield a wine that is a bit too bitter but this wine can be successfully used to enhance both red and white wines when blended in. Here’s a closer look at both processes.

Destemming the Grapes and Letting Them Soak with the Skins

As Crushpad Chief Winemaker Michael Zitzlaff points out, white grapes allow multiple ways of processing, each yielding a very distinct result. Most plans involve whole cluster pressing or destemming and crushing – “The concept is that with the whole cluster press and the press you get a nice, clean, very soft and elegant juice. [...] But if you want to produce something with a little more complexity, some oil, some real rowan-like character and some silky, satin palate texture, you really want to try some different things,” Zitzlaff explains.

Squashing the berries gently and letting them sit over night for 6 to 8 hours at about 48 degrees Fahrenheit (about 10 degrees Celcius) gives you a little bit more of a phenolic characteristic, more of the fruit flavors, and makes the wine a little more intense.

Fermenting the Wine in Contact with the Skins

This is the less common way of making wine and involves crushing the berries and fermenting them on the skins, which renders the wine quite phenolic, but with a huge amount of flavor to it.

“This is not a normal practice, but it’s something that can produce some really interesting results with the wine,” Crushpad Winemaker Jonathan Borreson describes. “There’s a lot of phenolic compounds in the skins, in the seeds, and also in the bits of stem that get through the crusher”.

According to Borreson, the resulting wine is typically too strong and bitter to drink on its own, but makes a great blending component nonetheless. Making wine using this method gives the product a lot of depth, a little bit of spice, and a strong apply character, while the inherent bitterness can be counterbalanced by blending it with other complementary wine assortments. As Borreson reveals, this way of making white wine opens up many different possibilities, and the Crushpad team is still experimenting with wines obtained like that, especially with respect to the numerous options of blending it.

Overall, whenever you want to make wine that has an intense flavor and a very rich texture, you should definitely consider the method described here. White wines that are fermented on the skins have a strong, unique taste, and can act as a great basis for a wide scope of custom wines, both red and white.