One of the most exclusive tickets in the county this weekend involves spending good money for the privilege of submerging your feet in smelly, sticky, squashy, stain-prone stuff. And wading around in it. And winning prizes.
If that sounds like childish behavior — you sure got that right. Except for the alcoholic, adults-only aspect, that is. Nothing childish about that.
This year is the 10th anniversary of Stompfest. Every fall for the past decade, Rusty Grape Vineyard, just northeast of Battle Ground, has invited local wine lovers to get their hands dirty by turning their feet purple. Come squeeze wine juice out of grapes in the refined age-old process known as, uh, jumping up and down in a barrel.
That’s not the real name of this ancient art. If you need to call it something other than grape stomping, call it “pigeage.” That French term refers both to the initial crushing of the grapes and to the continued mixing — pushing down — into the juice of skins, seeds and stems that tend to rise to the top. Those grape elements, together called the “cap,” are what provide the color, flavor and tannins in wine.
Here’s how Stompfest works. There are three different stomping starts — at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. You and your partner will stand beside a barrel full of grapes; there will be just 10 pairs of partners at each stomp. When the starter whistle blows, you leap into the barrel — excuse us, the liability lawyers say, make that carefully step into the barrel — and start stomping away like your life depends on it.
Three minutes is a long time when you’re dancing in grapes. Especially when it’s not free-form, interpretive, hippie dancing but a more businesslike, firm-footed, take-no-prisoners style. Remember, this isn’t just dancing for the joy of it. You’ve got a job to do.
Hope you like purple
Toward the end of those three minutes, you and your partner must start scooping up from underfoot bunches of blobby grape crush. Squeeze and wring out the blobs into a nearby plastic bucket. Your goal is to produce the heaviest volume, by weight, of raw juice by the time the three-minute whistle blows.
What about big, heavy chunks of stem and skin? For that matter, what about adding some winning weight to your bucket with pebbles or other sinkers? Sorry, they’ve thought of that. The juice gets filtered — and all the big chunks scooped out — before it gets weighed.
Warning: Stompfest is a seriously competitive event.
Disclaimer: No, it’s really not. It’s pretty much an opportunity to get silly in your bare tootsies in a barrel.
Reminder: Wear clothes you don’t plan on wearing to that meeting with the queen. Everybody emerges from the fray painted purple.
Rusty Grape is offering some sweet prizes. The stompingest team in each stomping session will win wine tasting and a dinner for six at the Rusty Grape; the day’s juiciest-overall bucket will win a dinner at the Rusty Grape plus shuttle service to the Best Western hotel in Battle Ground for an overnight stay.
Alas, you will never get so much as a whiff of your dedicated footwork in any resulting Rusty Grape product. Stompfest is just for fun — not for actually making wine.
