At the Simi winery, simply alongside the road from the north into the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg, there is a courtyard with a fountain: water, as always in California, making at once the twin statements of wealth and hospitality. Steve stops into the office for a moment to tell them he is taking some special people through on a tour, and then leads us across a small bridge.
There is a railway line here, just outside the building, and we admire the two styles of stonework on the winery building: the left half constructed by Chinese railway workers and the right half constructed some years later by Italian immigrants.
Above that building on the hill are giant stainless steel tanks and crushing machines. ("You mean the grapes are no longer crushed by feet?" says Kate. "Oh no!" laughs Steve: "Have I burst that bubble?") The fermentation vats are open-topped (although under rooves): the red wines fermenting at the ambient temperature, the wine wines fermenting at a chill. The grape skins and seeds for the white wines are collected and taken back to the vinyards to be spread as compost; the skins for the red wines kept int during fermentaiton.
Inside the building are long rows of oak barrels imported from Franch in immaculate cool rooms that smell sweet with the wood scent. Each has a barcode on it for meticulous tracking.
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