On My Mind: The harvest toast that went off with a bang
As harvest begins in our valley there are a variety of traditions and celebrations to celebrate the end of the growing season and the bounty of the earth.
As a member of the local press, I often received invitations to cover such events. I looked forward to them.
Some were humble occasions, with less than a dozen pickers finding a shady spot to stand in while a priest blessed them and the grapes they had tended.
Others were larger events, like the one traditionally held at Grigch Hills Estate, which attracts a devoted crowd of employees and customers and ends with a toast to the new vintage.
After witnessing more than 20 harvests, the one celebration that stands out to me is one that didn’t go quite as planned.
I don’t remember the date, but it was likely not long after the turn of the last century. The press and other invitees showed up as requested around 11 a.m. to celebrate the first grapes brought in at Mumm Napa Valley.
The weather was hot, not one of those cool, cloudy Napa Valley mornings. Shade was at a premium as we gathered outside of the crush pad.
Close by, I spied a table laden with splits of the Mumm Napa bubbly and what looked like press packets. Let the press conference begin.
The cordial winemaker greeted us and launched into an overview of the growing season for this new vintage and all the trials and triumphs expected of the harvest now underway.
And then suddenly without warning, it was a duck-and-cover drill, reminiscent of the post WWII drills when I was in grammar school.
Only it was no drill.
For a few, uncomfortable moments chaos reigned. Those bubbles we were to imbibe in just a few moments were popping corks out of their bottles and had turned into tiny, erratically exploding wet bombs.
The temperature had obviously exceeded the limits of those splits.
Once out of range, it became comical. I still remember the late Pierce Carson, a venerable reporter for the Napa Valley Register, looking rather rattled as he swerved this way and that, trying to get out of range.
Later, I did some research and learned that at 86 degrees Fahrenheit or more, carbon dioxide becomes less soluble in liquid and can cause such spontaneous breakage.
Fortunately, no one was injured, but it did kind of break up the party!
