Since it is Wine Harvest month, Kitty reached out to her pal, Ziggy The Wine Gal, in Healdsburg, California, in the heart of Sonoma to discover the wine harvest experience first hand.

Also, check out her website for some Ziglicious hand made cocktails and wine picks. Get the recipe at the bottom of the post!

Ziggy tells Kitty, “So, if you can imagine seeing trucks going down the little winding roads with bins in the backs of the trucks, with grape clusters falling out and jumping up and down in the bins. And when you go by any of the wineries you can smell the fermentation taking place. I just love the smell of fermentation. It is really alluring to me. It’s always fun to see the folks in the vineyards picking the grapes, and it happens around the clock here. So depending on what varietal they are harvesting it could happen at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, like the case of Pinot Noir. It’s important to pick the grapes when it’s cooler temperatures outside and we see a pretty large diurnal swing here in wine country, especially in Sonoma County where I can get the influence of the ocean coming in through the Russian river into the vineyards and you can see temperatures from 47, 48, 49 degrees in the morning and then it warms up in the afternoon where you can see temperatures close to 100 degrees. You know what? the varietals love it. Depending on what you have planted in the different areas, it really really soaks it up making for complexities in the grapes and the wine. It’s just a really exciting time. There are a lot of people who come to visit us during Harvest Time. It’s because you like to go into the wineries and see them crushing the grapes and see all the bins getting unloaded and see all the juice coming out.”

Get Figgy With It

Ingredients:
Large handful of very ripe figs
1 jigger gin
1 1/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz homemade lavender simple syrup
Fresh garnish such as an edible flower

Directions:
Chop up the figs and muddle them in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add a handful of ice and the rest of the ingredients, and shake well until cold. Strain into a coup style cocktail glass (some fig seeds might get through, that’s fine!) and garnish with an edible flower.