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Meet Your Makers

5 Ways to Hone Your Winemaking Prowess

Drinking wine is not hard work. Making wine during harvest time is hard work. But also, making wine is... making wine. So it’s pretty rewarding hard work. Here’s how to pitch in on supporting the wine industry and earn your wine-drinking keep.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT: 1

Cadet Wine + Beer Bar

What it is: A new Napa wine bar with serious pedigree. One of the partners was a sommelier for the French Laundry.
What’s required of you: Just... go there. Order a flight. If you’re there on a Monday, magnums will happen. Consider this a prerequisite.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT: 2

La Crema’s Virtual Vintner Experience

What it is: A community-created wine, where everything is voted on—choosing the varietal, the appellation (through August 24), the vineyard (August 25 to 31)... and on through the label design (October through February).
What’s required of you: Vote regularly. Buy the wine you’ve endorsed in fall 2015. Democracy is so important.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT: 3

Behind the Vines at Ram’s Gate

What it is: A thorough look at winemaking, from grape picking to bottling.
What’s required of you: Four programs on four days over the next year—picking, blending, pressing and bottling—with the same grapes throughout. You don’t have to do all four, but you’d never betray your grapes.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT: 4

Dogpatch WineWorks

What it is: A chance to craft your own barrel of wine. Right here in the city.
What’s required of you: Well, Dogpatch WineWorks does the hard stuff. But they’ll work with you and your friends on all aspects of production... on your schedule. Now, what to do with a barrel of wine?

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT: 5

A 29-Day Internship at Vineyard 29

What it is: An internship. An honest-to-wine, quit-your-job internship.
What’s required of you: $29,000. That’s the tuition you’ll pay for the privilege of rising at dawn to pick grapes, colead winery tours, test sugar levels, pour at trade shows and such. You’ve done much more for a good bottle of wine.