Calera Diaries, Part One

by Omar Raafat

Calera vineyards

It all started at last year’s Bibendum annual tasting. I’d always wanted to work a harvest but had never had the chance and with none of my European languages being good enough, doing so in France or Italy had never felt like an option. I wanted to be able to ask lots of questions, really find out how the wine making process works and what influenced the wine maker’s decisions at every stage (my background as a scientist is my excuse for this over eager nerdiness!).

Having tasted through the wonderful range from Californian winery Calera with  winemaker Josh Jensen at last year’s tasting I decided it was time to pop the question – would I be able to come over at harvest time later in the year to help out and see how it’s done? “Of course” was the reply, “we’d be happy to have you.”. If I’d known it would be that easy to organise I’d have done it years ago!   And so it was that late in September I boarded a plane to San Francisco with dreams of picking and crushing and filling barrels to my heart’s content.

After a night’s stay in San Francisco, I headed out of the city on the famously scenic Highway One along the Pacific coast for the 90 mile drive to Mount Harlan near Hollister, the hometown of Calera. My first glimpses of the Pacific as I left San Francisco were not quite as I had imagined. The closer I got to the sea, the thicker the fog was and as I drove along Ocean Drive I could just make out the rolling waves in the grey distance, more Skegness on a winter’s day than the Baywatch beaches I’d been expecting! Still, I reminded myself, I was here to immerse myself in oenology not go surfing.

Much of the journey was fogbound and it wasn’t until turning inland after Santa Cruz that the sun appeared. By the time I arrived in Hollister (self proclaimed “Earthquake Capital of the World”, sitting as it does on one of the branches of the San Andreas Fault), it must have been in the mid-30s and I was immensely grateful for my hire car’s air conditioning. It was amazing to experience the difference in temperature in such a short distance from the foggy coast to here and as I learned later, the neighbouring Salinas valley is often as much as 10°C cooler than Hollister thanks to fog rolling inland down the valley from the Pacific coast.

The view from Calera's offices

A quick stop for lunch and then the 10 mile drive from Hollister up to the winery on Mt Harlan and I began to realise just how far from anywhere Calera is. Hollister is hardly a bustling metropolis (population 34,413 according to the sign as you drive into town) and after the first couple of miles uphill on the Cienega Road you pass very little sign of development. By the time I passed the DeRose and Pietra Santa wineries, Calera’s closest neighbours, I had seen more wildlife than I’ve seen in many years – a wild hog, wild turkeys, California quail and a pair of bald eagles.

Part two of the diaries where Omar gets into the real action, will be published later this week.

Tags: Bibendumites, calera, california, Harvest diary, USA

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