Harvest is the winemaker's version of hell.
The workload can stretch over 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for two months straight, as just-picked grapes flood the wineries.
From early September through early November, California winemakers get little sleep, lose weight, forget their kids' names. Some take up smoking. They grow beards, don't shave their legs, live on burritos and deli sandwiches and won't realize that the Giants and A's are out of playoffs until harvest is done -- and the World Series is over.
It's no wonder that this intense, exhausting phase of the winemaking cycle is called crush.
Then there are husband and wife winemakers Adam and Dianna Lee, who take harvest to another fatigue level. The Santa Rosa transplants from Texas, who produce some of California's most sought-after Pinot Noirs under the Siduri Wines label, and intense, muscular Syrahs and Merlots under their Novy Family Wines brand, are admitted gluttons for harvest punishment. Not only do they suffer the normal rigors of crush gladly, they take the masochism further, personally tasting the grapes and supervising the picking in all 27 of the vineyards from which they buy fruit -- from Santa Barbara to northwest Oregon.
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