Krystal’s Article: DIY Winemaking With Crushpad

A state-of-the-art winery located at the famous Sebastiani Winery in Sonoma, Calif., Crushpad enables anyone with a serious interest in wine and a bit of money to participate in the winemaking process. The winery believes that winemaking is magic, and that having a day job shouldn’t prevent you from having the experience of creating your own wine. 

Staffed by wine industry veterans and technology industry refugees, Crushpad is there to educate and guide you through the entire winemaking process, from vineyard selection to bottling. You can be hands-on with it by helping sort, de-stem, crush and ferment your grapes, or you can keep tabs on the process by receiving real-time updates as these tasks are carried out.

Crushpad even allows you to launch your own commercial wine brand – all without quitting your day job!

Considering that Crushpad is such an interesting concept, James was curious to taste what these “Average Joe” winemakers were creating, and what was coming out of this winery. So, I lined up a tasting for him of 21 different Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons from 2008 to see what he thought.

Check out the tasting notes on these Crushpad Cabs (some proved to be outstanding!), and be sure to revisit James’ video blog he did during the tasting.

Krystal Schwegel is the Editorial Assistant and Web Manager for JamesSuckling.com.