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mhm. A little over half a century ago, this beautiful woman stepped out of her clothes and into a bathtub of California. Champagne. It was a naughty episode, to be sure, but it drew the world's attention to California's premium wine industry. It was the beginning of Baptists

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in America, man. Yeah. The old Wine Guard, though somewhat reluctant about it, began to recognize the new Thank you and the people of san Francisco Bay Area began to realize that a good part of their destiny lay intertwined with the vines in the sun. Okay, The

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places in this land where you can step 100 years back into history are not many. Some ghost towns, A few museums maybe, but the wine country certainly. I don't think that anybody. Springtime comes to the wine country and the mustard grasses carpet the vineyards and the

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flatlands, tractors growl along the rows of vines. Mm. And these high hillsides have known the feel of the plow and the plotting hoofs for over a century. So. And still men must use their hands and backs if the vines are to bloom in the flinty earth

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they love so well. Yeah. Great wines require subtle circumstances. Neither slide rules nor computers have yet been able to regulate the elements. Son and fog rains, winds and just the right soil. And then a special smile upon that vintage. Mm the vine and across, tied firmly

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together in northern California's history when father Junipero serra trek northward from Mexico and established missions for the spanish king in this hut admission san Gabriel. The Franciscan friars made wine About 200 years ago. That was today. Religious orders throughout the state still till the vineyards. Mm

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For it is said in Ecclesiastes eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart. Yeah. Part of. To the northern Most mission at cinema. A military commandant game General Mariano Guadalupe, Evil leo. He served at that post until California gained its independence

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in 1846. A pioneer at heart Valeo chose not to return to Mexico. His beautiful home and vineyards bespoke his gentle breeding. An incomparable taste. Yeah, yeah. A spanish grandee of the old school. He was, He had 17 Children And his family was a happy one. He

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called his ranch la creamy Montes mountain teardrop. And his wines indeed tasted of the good cinema earth and his loving care. Uh huh. Summertime and the vines became heavy with their heritage cabernet sauvignon pena in the wire gamay beaujolais, their sweetness sampled only by the birds

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and forest animals. They wait until the word shall come, that it be time for them to turn to yet more precious stuff. A few leagues away from the bellagio ranch, a wild and dynamic Hungarian was getting ready to harvest some vines of his own count, Augustine

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Hajrizi, soldier, businessman, author, rancher, politician, refiner of gold And now he had settled in California with his wife and four sons. His first love was wine and when he tasted Galileo's villages, he knew he'd found the right spot. one of Vista, he called it. He built

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a solid stone winery, his home, a magnificent pompeian villa. He imported 1400 grape varieties that had for centuries produced Europe's most famous wines. Yeah, the vines were good colonists and the wines made from them were described as bottled poetry. One of vista was to remain famous

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long after the unfortunate Hajrizi became the victim of an alligator while traveling in Nicaragua. Many wineries still use the same equipment brought around the horn by the clipper ships of yesteryear. And still there is no machine that can pick the ripe wine grapes from the vine

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when the autumn comes. Mhm. Yeah, like that. Mhm. Yeah, that the ball, your winery in Rutherford, the varied sound of the crush can be heard from the owners beautiful veranda. Yeah, behind tractors

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by truck. The grapes are carried to their final moment. Yeah, yeah, mm. Uh huh. Yeah. The crusher paddle slaps the grapes into pulp and juices. The stems are separated and the nectar splashes into the bats. The workplace there are that's though are near forgotten hillsides in

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California that never more will feel fresh juices in their pores and the crushes will never spin again. This was Schramsberg south of Calistoga and Robert Louis Stevenson describes its heyday in the late 1800s when he and his wife Fanny visited there, He said Mr Schramm's is

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the oldest vineyard in the valley, 18 years old I think. Yet he began a penniless barber and even after he had broken ground up here, continued for long to tramp the valley with his razor. Mrs Schramm entertained Franny in the veranda while I was tasting wines

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in the cellar. Mr Schramm followed every sip and read my face with proud anxiety. I tasted all I tasted every variety and shade of Schramm burger. Much of it goes to London most I think. And Mr Schramm has a great notion of the english taste Now

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his place is the picture of prosperity. The stirring sunlight and the growing vines and the vats and the bottles in the cavern. Make a pleasant music for the mind. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Jacob Schramm's winery died with him. Other great wine houses were struck down by vine diseases and prohibition, Badly damaged by the 1906 earthquake. This winery was torn down, This one was converted into a factory, Fountain Grove winery before the vines were torn out of it,

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and it was turned into a ranch casks. Now wait to be chopped into firewood. Not here, though, fermentation is beginning and the natural yeasts from the great skins begin to change the juice to wine. If the temperature is to cool, the juice will not ferment in

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France. At the turn of the century, it was sometimes necessary for three or four men to strip naked and jump into the vats to provide heat. A humorist after witnessing this ritual wrote, it is done to give the wines a full body. They call it fermenting

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on the skin. Today there are more precise if less dramatic, ways to control fermentation temperatures. When the great juice becomes wine, it is pumped into casks for aging the skin and seeds called pomace are squeezed to make a dollar a gallon wine. This is one of

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the first mechanical presses brought from Ireland in the late 1880s. It is still used today. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, the tightly packed thomas is kicked loose from the

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basket and at most wineries it is plowed into the ground for fertilizer. The early wine barons brought with them drive and elegance and wine in their bloodstreams in the napa valley settled the Barringer Brothers, Jacob and Frederick. They model their house after their castle on the

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rhine and had their likenesses done in stained glass. Another early pioneer Charles. Krug political refugee from Germany who started as a freelance winemaker to the ranches of the valley, Louis Martini, an Italian immigrant boy who owned a winery when he was 19, Captain Gustave Niebaum, a

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Shrewd finished sea captain who's sailing days were over now. His winery would be his ship and the vineyards is c it was called Ingle nook scotch for fireside corner in the livermore valley James, Kincannon would raise his family and make sacramental wines. The fiery Irishman's nights

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of selling books by torchlight were over and karl wente just across the road, founded a dynasty of his own in the Alameda County. The sprawling vineyards of josiah stanford produced wines that were featured at the famous Hotel del Monte and the workers were proud of that,

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proud. Also, with a fabulous core bells, they had founded an empire bordering on the lovely Russian river and they had been successful at many things, lumbering orchards, prunes, even tobacco before they finally settled on making quality brandy and champagne Anton Korbel built this tower as a

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reminder of his days in a bohemian prison. A more pleasant reminder of french elegance may be found at the Al Midan vineyards in los Gatos. These vineyards in the towering Santa Cruz Mountains were cleared by Chinese coolies. In the late 1800s the chinese tended the vines,

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picked the grapes and then crushed them by foot. Some washed bottles, others like hope, oh, amassed great fortunes by becoming labor bosses, but the greatest monument to the now gone chinese are thousands of yards of hand dug wine tunnels in the hillside caves. The aging wine

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was kept at constant temperatures. Mhm. No giant earthmovers, no explosives, just pick axes and shovels. It is 1915 and hat in hand paul Masson sits confidently among his fellow vintners at the Pan pacific Exposition in san Francisco. He is no stranger at springing surprises. On an

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earlier visit to his native country, his champagne had been judged better than France's best. Mm at his mountain top winery. The flamboyant Masson and his friends spent weekends sampling rare wines and pinching pretty housemaids imported from France. A red flag warned all below to stay away.

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And who would ever forget the wild champagne bath At his home in Al Midan? Anna held the darling of the Ziegfield girl she was and visiting san Francisco at the time. How could she resist an invitation to a home that had entertained such greats as Farragut,

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Grant and Sherman. Anna came and bathed. How many bottles were poured? Certainly more than 0.500, Some say 125 empties were at the tub side when the impulsive act was over. Yeah, yeah. when Madison died in 1940 and age went with him an age when even the

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outside of the wine casks had to mirror the beauty of the soft fire burning within. Mhm. Mhm. Uh huh. Now the wine sleep in cool caves damped with moss and scarred with the old memories of picks and shovels. The harsh sediment of youth drops to the

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bottom of the cask. It is time for finishing washing bottling, cooking, labelling, packing leisurely operations once these were no more. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Mhm. A piece of the action. Yeah. Tread softly here. These bottles are nobility, each in its own cradle.

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These young aristocrats slowly amassed their fortunes of sparkling diamonds. Autumn leaves will fall and they're more common fellows. Meet the fate of an earlier bottling. These will rest until the special yeasts injected in their veins give them royal bubble. Some will never grace the festive table.

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They are high, strong, apt at any moment to shatter as their sediments are shaken toward their next candle. Still assist the Champagne Master to make sure every bottle is ready for the coronation. The ceremony begins. The next are frozen in brine and the caps pulled, pressure

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blows out the frozen sediment, then dosage a disposition to suit every taste from dry to sweet aceptar of cork. Mm mhm. Mhm. And a necklace and finally the crowning with a foil headpiece. Mhm. It is winter now in the wine country. The work still goes on

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but at a slower pace. Mhm. Yeah. Mm. Well you enjoy an afternoon sherry as a thin winter sun slips through the windows. Yeah, yeah. Anticipate if you will a fine chilled of pinot chardonnay with roasted game birds or perhaps a vintage cabernet sauvignon with venison after

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dinner, zipper. Sweet rich port as embers glow. It will be a good wine. Mm hmm. Yeah. For back of the wine is the vintner and back through the years. His skill and back of it all are the vines in the sun and the rain and the

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master's will. Yeah.