Schramsberg

This statue is called "Riddler's Night Out", I love it!

I have been on many winery tours in Napa, but Schramsberg takes the cake! This place is amazing!

Scott's father and his girlfriend, Peony, were visiting from Hong Kong last week, and we met up with them in Napa for a day of wine tasting and good food. Scott and I planned the winery stops and lunch, and his dad got the limo. Scott's brother, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Carolina, also joined us.

Schramsberg is a sparkling wine house. They were founded by the Schrams way back before prohibition, but back then they only made still wine. The Schrams enlisted the help of Chinese immigrants to dig a cave for wine making and storage (ok...so maybe they didn't "enlist" the Chinese). The cave is amazing...it was hand dug, and you can actually see the pick marks on the walls! Mr. Schram also built an amazing house, modeled after a ship. However, once prohibition came, the winery had to close. And there it sat, unused caves and a beautiful house, from the 1920s-1960s. The cave was taken over by local wildlife, including tons of bats; and the house was taken over by local teenagers as a secret place to party.

In the 1960s, the Davies family decided to purchase the rundown property and begin to make sparkling wine, since no one else in the valley was doing so. It took them quite awhile to clean out the cave and refurbish the house (especially since Mrs Davies did not want to kill any of the animals in the cave...she actually chased them all out with a broom!). But now, there hard work is greatly appreciated in the beautiful property and delicious sparkling wine.

The Schram house...now a historical building(imagine that as your high school hang out!)

Nowadays, the cave holds 2.5 million bottles of sparkling wine, all going through there second fermentation in the bottle. You can't touch any of the bottles though, since there is such a large pressure build up inside.

Scott, me, Peony...look at all the champagne!!

We also learned about riddling, which is the method of yeast removal from the bottle. The bottles are placed in a riddling rack, where they are turned everyday, and the angle in the rack is increased to coax the yeast to the neck of the bottle; where it is eventually frozen and shot out like a bullet. And a woman came up with this method of yeast removal (actually, Veuve Clicquot...did you know Veuve means widow, she was a 27 year old widow and came up with this method, and kept it a secret from all the other champagne houses for 15 years!) Schramsberg's professional riddler can turn 50,000 bottles in 1 day....and he only works 6 hours! Here is a video about it on youtube if you want to learn more and see the riddler in action: Schramsberg Riddler.

The riddling racks. Notice the stuff hanging off the cave...that is actually moss, and its a sign of a healthy cave. Who knew?

After we toured and learned the history and wine making methods, we had a sit down tasting of 4 sparkling wines and 1 still wine. My favorite was the J. Schram 2002, thanks for the bottle Stephen!

At the tasting: Carolina, me, Scott. The table was made out of a riddling rack...I want one!

Next time any of you are in Napa, make sure to check out Schramsberg...and if you invite Scott and I we can get you the "industry" tour for free =)

Sorry, don't know why this posted so small...but here we all are at Schramsberg.

So, if you noticed, there was no sign of Jeff on our tour. He had an unfortunate foot injury the night before, where he hurt both feet, and was unable to walk. Here's proof he was with us though:

Little brother piggybacks big brother to the limo. Aww!