Dateline Camp Schramsberg

Immersion into Napa Valley’s best food and sparkling wine at Camp Schramsberg

It’s quite a show, opening a bottle of champagne or sparkling wine with a 200-year-old French saber. After a satisfying “pop!” the cork and glass neck of the bottle go flying and wine comes pouring out of the bottle.

Schramsberg’s Hugh Davies is quite adept at it.

On a recent Sunday night, at the beginning of a three-day adventure in food and wine called “Camp Schramsberg,” Davies used a butter knife to “saber” a bottle of 2000 Schram Rosé — much to the delight of the crowd. The rosé is one of 12 blends of sparkling wine made by Schramsberg, which was founded in 1862 by Jacob Schram and revitalized by Davies’ parents, the late Jack and Jamie Davies.

The Calistoga winery — the first and one of the few in the Napa Valley to make sparkling wines — has offered its fall “Camp Schramsberg” for the past dozen years.

This year, I joined 27 other campers on an unforgettable journey that included harvesting grapes in a Carneros vineyard, learning about the historic caves and production facilities at Schramsberg and eating and drinking at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena.

Campers came from 10 states — from as far away as Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas and Oklahoma; a handful were from the Bay Area and California. Two of us were local — Jennifer Inglles works for St. Helena’s Go Fish. Nearly all had traveled to the Napa Valley before, about half were in the wine and restaurant businesses, others were wine enthusiasts and relished the experience.

Saber rattling

Back to sabering. After Davies’ demonstration, we got our first chance on Monday afternoon, but not without some rules from chef Holly Peterson, a Calistoga resident who grew up in St. Helena. She brought her 200-year-old saber, suitably dull for the task, to class.

We were standing on the outdoor terrace at the CIA. Peterson said there are a few rules to sabering — the neck of the bottle must be cold (the 20 or so bottles of wine we were to taste in the afternoon during our food pairing session were plunged in ice); the bottle must be held at a 45-degree angle; the blade of the saber — do not call it a “sword” or “knife” — must be held against one of the two seams of the bottle; and after removing the bottle’s foil and wire cage, you must consider the bottle a loaded weapon and not point it at anyone.

After Peterson demonstrated the technique — to much applause — she asked for a volunteer. I put my hand up, figuring I might as well get it over with, and stepped next to Peterson. She handed me a chilled bottle. I held it grabbing the bottom with my thumb and fingers on the bottle’s label. Peterson made sure I had a good grip on the bottle. I did.

We found the seam in the bottle, lined up her saber on the seam and she took her thumb off the cork. I was ready. Holding the bottle with my left hand, I moved the knife edge along the seam and hit the top of the bottle. “Pop!” It flew out, wine poured out of the bottle and I had a big grin on my face. It couldn’t get any better than this, I thought, as my classmates’ applause swept over me.

Joy Henderson, camp director, who is also Schramsberg’s PR whiz and director of marketing, captured me on film, as she did for all of the 30 or 40 bottles sabered over two days.

Two camps

Camp Schramsberg was divided into two parts:

• First, the production of sparkling wine, beginning with harvesting chardonnay grapes and ending with drinking a wonderful 1985 Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc from the winery’s library.

• Second, two Peterson-taught sessions on pairing food with some of the 12 sparkling wines that Schramsberg produces.

Wine production

First, it was amazing that Davies and his staff, including winemakers Keith Hock and Sean Thompson, could take time from their busy harvest schedules to shepherd around a group of wannabes.

On Monday, as the campers were riding to Jack Tognetti’s Carneros vineyard to harvest chardonnay grapes, Hock said Schramsberg’s harvest was 95 percent complete. In fact, crews finished harvesting all but 260 vines on Tognetti’s property on Aug. 21-22.

At first light Monday morning, workers had already harvested chardonnay grapes from 160 vines on Tognetti’s property. The crew left 100 vines for us to pick.

In two hours, we harvested 1 1/4 tons and I found out just how hard a job harvesting grapes is. Even if I had the desire, it would take me many years to get enough skill to harvest grapes quickly enough to earn a living. I ended the morning with new respect for those who harvest grapes in this valley.

After harvesting the grapes, we raced the grapes back to Schramsberg, where they were dumped into the bladder press. The grapes are pressed three times and the first “fraction” is called “free run.” The 60-65 percent of the juice that is free run is the most crisp, flavorful and tart. It is sweet grape juice and delicious. The second fraction presses all the juice out of the grapes, and the third fraction extracts the juice from the skin and seed. Schramsberg sells this lesser-quality juice for $5 a gallon.

Twelve tons of grapes can be pressed at a time, but it is a process that takes three hours. When 60 tons of grapes are delivered to the crush pad in one day — not unusual — that’s a 15- or 16-hour day, just to crush the grapes.

Although the grape juice is delicious, after it begins its fermentation, it’s usually too tart to enjoy. A chardonnay grape juice picked within the last seven days in Anderson Valley was OK, one that was picked 10-13 days ago made my mouth pucker. I followed Davies’ advice and example; I spit it out.

Food and wine pairing

Holly Peterson is a classically-trained French chef, who is well chosen to teach the food and wine pairings — her Sunday night dinner, held in Jack’s Grove on the Schramsberg property, was incredible.

The wines were paired with the three passed hors d’oeuvres, the salad course of watermelon and tiger prawns and the dessert course of summer peaches and dried apricots with a Cremant sauce.

The main course was paired with the only still wine that Schramsberg makes: Its estate-grown J. Davies Cabernet Sauvignon, made from the Bordeaux-blend grapes grown around the Calistoga property. That course was rack of lamb, minted carrots, green beans with shiitake mushrooms and Potato Galette. It was wonderful and a taste of what was to come during Monday night’s dinner at the Wine Spectator Restaurant at the CIA.

Both Monday and Tuesday afternoons, Peterson worked us and our tastebuds. Her task for us: “We’re trying not only to find the foods that pair well with wine, but also what to avoid.”

Peterson presented a classic French list of “problem” foods that don’t pair well with wine. They included eggs, vinegar, lemon juice, artichokes, spinach, asparagus and soup, especially consommé. The list was written a couple hundred years ago, she said, and there are ways around the “problem” foods. Then she added, “when it comes right down to it, no food is really banned.”

One of the dishes prepared by the CIA chefs and served was a Malaysian barbecued chicken, which was on the spicy side, to say the least. Peterson told us to take a sip of wine, then a bite of food, then another sip of wine, which was a mistake. My mouth was on fire and I almost had to call St. Helena’s finest to put out the blaze. “Alcohol increases the heat,” she said simply. “To quench the heat, eat a piece of melon.” I did and I recovered.

Riddler rules caves

The original caves at Schramsberg were dug by Chinese laborers shortly after Jacob Schram planted Napa Valley’s first hillside vineyards in 1862. The caves, now expanded, are 27,000 square feet and contain about 2 million bottles.

The ruler of the underground caves is riddler Ramon Viera, who has worked for the Davies family for many years.

After the wines are fermented in stainless steel or oak barrels or go through malolactic fermentation, the wines are blended.

Sugar and yeast is added to the blended still wines, which is bottled in April, May and June. The bottles then go through a second fermentation, which takes a few weeks. The wine is aged in the bottles for between two and 10 years.

As master riddler, Viera’s job is to turn the premium wines by hand to get the yeast and sentiment into the neck of the bottles. The bottles, held in a rack at an angle with the necks down, are turned one-eighth at a time, up to 18 times. Viera uses his fingertips to riddle the bottles and he is amazingly quick. His record is 50,000 bottles a day. Riddling is done both by hand and by machine, which can turn 500 bottles in a cage at one time.

Once the yeast is gathered in the neck of the bottle, the plug is disgorged and a dosage — a mixture of sugar and wine — is added to the bottles before foils, corks and wire cages are added. It is further aged before it is released.

Team competition

Finally, though, the camp was about the friendships that developed. On Tuesday afternoon, we split into teams and dreamed up a five-course menu that was both date and site specific. Our team’s fantasy was an Election Day feast held at the various monuments that are in the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Even though this was a “serious” competition, we got cheers from the rest of the campers gathered in the Rudd Wine Center at the CIA.

The winning entry was a wonderful fantasy held at the Hearst Castle on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. After fantastic hors d’oeuvres, salads, a main course and a dessert — all paired with five Schramsberg sparkling wines — each participant finally would find their own true love in the light of the full moon.

Sign me up.