Sonoma Grape Camp is as educational or lazy as you make it

I went to Sonoma County Grape Camp to prove something to myself.

I wanted to prove that I really did love picking grapes. Harvest time? Hell yes, that was all me. How could it not be? I was not some ascot-wearing dandy wiping spots from my Reidels. I was a guy who wanted dirt under my nails. I wanted to be a part of the process.

I had decided that grape-picking was not for me in Barolo, the fabled town in the Piedmont region of Italy, where the fabled “king of Italian wines,” Barolo, is produced. The winemaker Gian Luca Viberti had invited me to his place during harvest and I practically begged him for a set of shears. Out I went on my first morning in Barolo, armed with a pair of gloves, a set of sheers and miles of rolling hills ripe with bunches of nebbiolo grapes hanging heavy on their vines. Earlier at least a couple of hours before I made it outside, a small tractor fired its engine beneath my window. It was idling its way up and down the rows, towing a tub that was filling up with grapes, when I arrived in the vineyard.

The workers—the real workers—gave me a nod. They did not know me, and probably did not know that I was coming. They went on working with little regard for me, as it to say, If you want to help us do our job it’s fine with us, knock yourself out. I bent and snipped for 10 minutes in the autumn sun of northern Italy. I took a break. I bent and snipped for 10 more minutes and took another break. Was this it? Bending and snipping on steep hillsides in silence as the sun continued to rise and bake? After an hour it occurred to me that yes, this was it—that harvest was not for me. Lunch and dinner were for me.

Fifth-generation winemaker Gaia Gaja eases into the wine business

Long before Gaia Gaja appreciated the taste of wine, she loved the smell. She is 30 years old now, and has been completely in love with wine for about a decade. For the past five years, she has been working full-time in her family's legendary wine business, Gaja.

“I think to understand wine you need to be more grown up,” she says.

The fabled Gaja, producer of Barbaresco and many other offerings—from sauvignon blanc and chardonnay to Brunello and Barolo—is as grown up as could be; this year the winery celebrates its 150th anniversary.

Gaia was raised in the tiny village of Barbaresco and remembers a time when it seemed like the worst place in the world to have to live. The picturesque town among the rolling hills of northwest Italy is a vacation paradise for some. But to a teenager who is forced to live there, it can be more than a little stifling, she says.

“Before, it was tight,” Gaia says of Barbaresco. “Now, it fits me well. There is a heavy silence there. You can hear your own footsteps.”

Gaia spends many of her days traveling, promoting Gaja wines around the world. Recently those travels took her to Japan, India and the United States. About 20 percent of the company’s exports go to the United States. Another 20 percent stays in Italy. The rest goes mainly to Germany, Switzerland, England, Russia, Canada and Japan.