Everything and everybody has a month nowadays but certainly wine should have at least one month in California considering the growth of the industry here in the Golden State. September has been Wine Month in California for 10 years now and here are some reasons to celebrate aged and fermented grape juice.
Harvest
Indeed this time of year is the most active along with being the most important season when it comes to wineries. This is harvest season and vineyard and facilities don’t have a busier time than the picking, destemming, crushing, pressing, fermentation and finally storage period of the year. This is immediately followed by harvest festivals and dinners.
It’s a great time of year for customers or fans of wines to meet the winemakers while having a little fun either helping with harvest and wine processes or enjoying the beautiful view of a vineyard with vines full and lush. The saying goes: ‘Come for the view, Stay for the wine‘. Often wineries will have special events including concerts and of course, who can go to wine country without wine tasting.
Commemorating the states huge investment in the wine industry with its own month is the perfect example of just how important vinification is in California. Producing upwards of 90% of the United States wine production is impressive in itself.
As a major food supplier to the U.S., California also is one of the food destination regions in all the world. A signature example of that is the just concluded Savor The Central Coast in Santa Margarita. The event celebrates food and wine merging two activities that are a huge draw to the area.
Paso Robles, on the California Central Coast, was named the world’s number one wine region. Like the Savor event with food, entertainment is becoming more and more the norm in wine country. For instance Crosby Stills and Nash are performing September 30th at the Vina Robles Amphitheater. The spectacular center is in its second season.
Number 1
As the number one agriculture in the state, viticulture brings in over $50 billion a year from nearly half a million acres. $3 billion in taxes are generated and the wine business has created well over 300,000 full-time California jobs (source: PRWCA).
From the North Coast highlighting Napa and Sonoma, out to the Sierras, down through the Central Valley and across to the Central Coast and beyond, the array and variety of grapes and wines from California is unmatched in the world.
If you missed it, you don’t have to only come here in September and in fact, once Harvest is done, as briefly mentioned before, festival and dinners, mostly in October, adorn hillsides after valleys after hillsides throughout the state. And the change of colors starts to appear in fall giving the countryside, in almost any wine region in the state, a golden glow, showing once again why California is such a special place … and surely offers another reason to call it the Golden State.
Cheers,
Daryle W. Hier
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Paso Wine Barrels 