DRAFT Magazine

By Bob Ecker

Wine people love beer. No, not necessarily point crazed wine aficionados or sauvignon blanc obsessed sprites, but real wine industry people: winemakers, vintners, cellar workers, sales and marketing folks, harvest managers, and all kinds of grape pickers and field workers generally love beer. At the end of their day, after working with wine and grapes for hours, they want nothing more than a cold, clean beer — like the rest of us.

“After a day of tasting the acidic juice of young, developing wine, I will often start the evening by enjoying a nice pale ale or lager,” says Reggie Hammond, winemaker at Monterey County’s Ventana Vineyards.

“Not only does it take a lot of beer to make great wine, but you can tell a lot about a winemaker by the beer in his hands during harvest,” Kent Fortner, Proprietor of “Road 31″ Wines says. “For example, if you see a Sierra Nevada - he’s likely a fruit-forward, California-centric kind of guy. Pilsner Urquel — probably crafts his wines with a little bit of Euro-funk.  Belgian Lambic — probably makes varietals of wine you’ve never heard of.”

Beer is an essential element during the wine harvest. “There is never a shortage of Bud Light for the vineyard pickers from August through October but the cellar guys are Sierra Nevada and Fat Tire lovers,” Suzanne Groth, co-owner of Napa’s elegant Groth Vineyards explains. “At our annual harvest party in the vineyards the vineyard crew cooks carnitas on an open flame and fries papas (French fries) in a copper kettle. Although Cabernet is present, the Sierra Nevada goes down very well.”

“I will say that I do enjoy fine beer on occasion with caviar which I find to be a suitable alternative to Champagne,” says John Schwartz, General Manager/Partner at the uber exclusive, Amuse Bouche Winery in Napa Valley.  Heady stuff — beer and caviar.

“I love beer,” says Naomi Brilliant, owner of the iconoclastic Roshambo Winery in Sonoma. “I had the chance to go to Belgium this summer and I was blown away by how complex and like good chocolate their beers are. Beer just isn’t as pretentious as wine and you always know what you’re getting in a bar. Wine, oh my you don’t know how long it’s been sitting their open and cooking. Beer is safe.”

Judd Finkelstein is the winemaker at Judd’s Hill, in Napa. “Sure, we certainly drink our share here around the winery,” he says. “During the hot ‘n sticky harvest, we keep refreshed with lighter-style beers over ice with a little lemon wedge. Tastes good and doesn’t get us too buzzed to punch down.” (Punch down is one of the key steps during the early part of the wine fermentation process.  Winemakers and cellar workers stand above the tanks and literally punch or push down the cap with paddles back into the fermenting grape juice)

EOS is one of the premier wineries in the Paso Robles area. Director of winemaking Nathan Carlson says, “I like the local Firestone Double Barrel ale quite a lot. It is the right combination of refreshment with malt richness and the hop balance is great too — more bittering than overpoweringly aromatic… This beer is fermented in used wine barrels — not an oaked-up flavor, but perhaps comforting for a winemaker?”

As to brands, winemakers — like everyone else — have their favorites.  “The second I turned 21 I went on as many beer factory tours as I could,” Brilliant says. “Henry Weinhards gave a free tour with a 20-oz free beer at the end. Olympia had an even better tour because they had the cute bear merchandise and the ‘land of clear blue water’ slogan. Oh, I forgot I also was born in Chico. Sierra Nevada was my swag beer in High school. No crappy Bud or Coors kegs, Sierra Nevada was it, and we drank quite a bit of it.”

Carlson also has a favorite brewery: “Even when I was making wine in Oregon, with more high-quality microbreweries per capita than anywhere else in the US, I would occasionally find myself yearning for Firestone Double Barrel!”  His other favorites include Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Black Butte Porter, and Summit’s Pale Ale from “back home” in Minneapolis. “I’ve been known to ship empty wine cases full of Leinenkugel’s from sales trips to Minneapolis and Wisconsin — the same recipe & water since 1867. And you can’t beat a Negra Modello when you are grabbing a burrito to stave off mid-afternoon hunger during crush.”

Winemakers’ tastes expand beyond the Americas. “I love Pilsner Urquel but I’m not exactly sure why,” Fortner says. “I think us winemakers look for something that will clean the red wine tannins off our teeth.”

So if you ever want to give a gift to a winemaker, don’t bring a bottle of wine, but a great sixpack of beer. Maybe something Belgian…

Bob Ecker is a writer from Napa, California.

All photos courtesy of Bob Ecker.