Adopt-A-Grape

Filed in archive Wine News on September 28, 2007

Earlier this week I wrote about new housing developments located on vineyards where people can have their own grapes and perhaps even make their own wine. But what if you're not interested in moving? What if you don't have the room for boxes and boxes of grapes to be sent to you? What if you just are interested in winemaking and want to do something a little bit quirky?

Then you should check out Adopt a Grape. Yes, you can "adopt" a grape and follow it from bud break through harvest, complete with a series of fun and educational notes from the vineyard crew.

From the press release:

You can choose a grape from any block in the vineyard, and you will receive a series of short film updates on the progress of your grape throughout the growing season and harvest. If you adopt a grape before it's harvested, you will be notified by email so that you can be part of your grape's fall journey.

"When we tell people what we do for a living, the most common response is that we are living their dream," says Adopt a Grape co-founder Duane Hoff. "This is a way for us to share the experience with other wine buffs."

Hoff's vineyard is in the Spring Mountain District Appellation perched above the Napa Valley, but he is not saying exactly where it is. "This isn't a sales pitch. People can come to Adopt a Grape and just enjoy the pleasures of seeing the grapes grow throughout the seasons, from bud break through harvest. It is an insider's glimpse into the romance and science of wine and the wine country lifestyle."

I couldn't resist such a charming program so I went ahead and adopted my own grape from Block 5: Cabernet Sauvignon. The description from the Web site:

Block five has the most challenging soil in our vineyard. The rock that forms our wine cave slides down and bisects the vineyard through this block. Its rocky soil put an incredible stress on the vines, making it struggle for them to grow and produce grapes. However, this soil creates extraordinary fruit and is worth the trouble of farming such inhospitable soil.

I've always heard that you have to make the vines suffer to produce the best wine, and I think in a way this is true in life as well. I think it will be really interesting to follow along and read about how the grapes progress throughout the year. But now the question is... what should I name my grape?