Stomper or Swabby?

Yesterday we had a nearly perfect day. The weather was ideal for just sitting on the grass, enjoying wine and looking out over the valley, so we headed to the Willamette Valley Vineyards for the annual grape stomping competition. Along with the wine tasting we wanted to show our visiting family members some of the sights. What a surprise to also find great food, good music and a wide variety of fun people.


When the opportunity arose to actually enter the grape stomping competition Caroline's face lit up. "Mom, can we do it!" I said, "sure." The waiting list was quite long and I never thought we would actually get in. But we found ourselves called forward to stomp in the 3 o'clock heat.
Caroline decided to take on the roll of the stomper. The rules are to stomp for 3 full minutes without touching the sides of the barrell. The stomper is allowed to steady their self on the shoulders of the swabby. Since Caroline was the stomper, this made me the swabby. My roll was to make sure the drain hole did not get plugged and the grape juices flowed steady into the jug.

When time was called we filled a jug & a half of grape juice & pulp!



The competition was fun and fierce! Each team was striving to win the coveted prize - a trip for two to sunny California for the National competition and 2006 Grape Stomping Championship Title.

Being first timers, I never dreamt we'd be in the running, but it was close.
Two, dare I say gentlemen, experienced stompers beat us out of the semi-finals by 6 ounces. They held the record for the heats stomped on Sunday and were going on to face the winners of the Saturday heats. We didn't stick around for the finals so we don't know how close we were to winning, but we went home feeling proud of our effort and we sure did have fun!