What 8-year-old Seralyn and 6-year-old Anna of Saratoga may not have known was the metamorphosis of taking those ripened grapes off the vines and transforming them into wine. The harvest season takes place from September through October, but the yearlong cyclical process before the cropping is a lifestyle and a family-honored tradition for viticulture enthusiasts and enologists, or winemakers. There's a passion, science and a history behind winemaking that many people who enjoy a bottle of wine with dinner don't fully understand.

The mystique of the vineyards is where the process begins.

Tucked away off dusty, windy roads and amid lush green landscapes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, there are about 50 small, family-owned and estate wineries, many of which are located within the limits of Los Gatos and Saratoga. The word estate means grapes are grown and processed on the premises of the vineyard.

The mountainous elevation, warm sunny days and cool coastal breezy nights are what makes the appellation the perfect climate and topography for grapes to ripen slowly and mature on the vines, what winemakers call "hang-time."

Los Gatos and Saratoga wineries have complex soil mixtures of loam and shale, and many are located close to the San Andreas Fault. There's a rural beauty and magic to the Santa Cruz Mountains that some say is unrivaled.

'Piece of heaven'

The origins of Burrell School Vineyards in Los Gatos date back to a schoolhouse built in 1890 on the 10-acre property. Owners and winemakers David and Anne Moulton live in the renovated house they call a "little piece of heaven" on a ridge-top filled with heritage and award-winning cabernet franc, chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir and syrah.

As of Sept. 19, the red zinfandel and merlot grapes had been handpicked by crews and run through a de-stemmer crusher machine that separates the grapes from the stems. The grapes, which had been picked earlier than anticipated because of an unusual wave of warm temperatures, sat fermenting in large bins. One person can pick about a bin a day.

"The heat spell really got everything ripe all at once," Anne said.

The grapes still had their skins, giving the juice a red pigmentation and also flavor. Anne said the solid skins have to be manually punched back down into the liquid wine to keep the solids moist, to redistribute the heat and to extract color and flavor. The flesh inside of grapes, even red grapes, is mainly white, which is another reason why the color has to be extracted from the skins.

About 250 grams of yeast had been added to the bins, and the sugar in the grapes would eventually ferment, turning into alcohol and wine—a bi-product of the process being carbon dioxide. The acid, sugar and pH or potential for hydrogen levels are all factors that help the Moultons know when it's time to pick the grapes.

But there's an even fonder reward that Anne said comes from a family-owned vineyard.

"I planted all the vines on the property myself," she said. "It's so gratifying to walk among the lines of ripening grapes—with a glass of wine in my hand, too."

Empty French Oak barrels sat outside the tasting room on the property, which was once a teacher's carriage house. Anne said the 2002 chardonnay vintage, which had been in the barrels for almost a year, had recently been transferred to the bottle, producing about 2,000 cases of wine. She said there will be additional time the wine stays in the bottle for aging before being distributed. Burrell School Vineyards wines can be purchased at places such as Whole Foods markets, Beverages & More and local fine restaurants.

Backyard bounty

In 1987, Bill and Brenda Murphy planted an aesthetically enchanting chardonnay vineyard in the backyard of their Saratoga home. Chardonnay is the family's personal favorite wine. They said the small, three-quarters-of-an-acre vineyard started out as a hobby, but unfolded into a continuing evolutionary journey.

"There was a hill going up behind the house, and we needed to do something with it," said Bill, a former top executive with Hewlett-Packard.

The hobby expanded from their backyard to installing and maintaining other backyard vineyards as a business, explained Bill, who now serves as the chief executive officer and head of their winemaking company—Clos LaChance.

Clos translates from French to mean a small fenced-in area encompassing a vineyard, and LaChance is Brenda's maiden name. The label on their bottles—illustrated by Los Gatos graphic designer Rick Tharp—features a hummingbird. A hummingbird is the only feathered creature winemakers welcome in a vineyard because of its ability to keep other birds away from the grapes.

Chapter two of the Murphys' original vision was the major undertaking of making wine on a custom-crush basis at an 85-acre vineyard and resort in San Martin. Clos LaChance wine is now distributed in 25 states and five countries and produces an average of 60,000 cases annually.

The Murphys' daughter Cheryl, 29, manages sales and marketing, while their other daughter, Kristin, 26, plans events and weddings for the family-run business.

"All four of us have very different roles," said Brenda, who is in charge of daily operations, human resources and payroll. "They all overlap, but they are all very different."

The Murphys believe in three aspects of winemaking: growing, making and selling.

"A lot of times people forget about the last part," Brenda said. "But everyone who is still in this business has learned to sell it."

Even successful California winemakers face challenges such as the "wine glut," which Cheryl said means there's too much wine inventory in the market—an excess of wine from past vintages—as well as fierce competition from imported wine.

Especially with the recent downturn in the economy, there's been increased consolidation in the California wine industry, resulting in either bankruptcies or early retirements from the profession.

Brenda said winemakers often use distributors to sell their wine to retailers or restaurants. Laws for selling wine vary from state to state. In one example, Brenda indicated they can't just ship their wine to Florida, but are required to use a distributor. Despite all obstacles, Brenda said they don't have any back inventory of wine and are competing successfully in the market.

Clos LaChance winemaking crews are mostly graduates of the world-known viticulture and enology programs at UC Davis. Bill said the crews are constantly taking soil samples, testing the sugar content of the berries and tasting for maturity and flavor. If they start picking too early, the fruit could be under-ripe, and if they pick too late, the alcohol content is too high.

The recent September heat spells accelerated the sugar levels and maturity of the grapes, and without much warning it forced the crews to work long, unpredictable hours picking the grapes.

"The decision to pick has to be exactly right," said Bill.

He added that winemaking is a cyclical process. The vines turn colors throughout the year, from a green abundance of growth to completely barren or "naked" through the chilly, windy months.

"One of the advantages of Northern California is that the climate is pretty consistent from year to year," Bill said. "We want it to stay warm and sunny from now until Thanksgiving."

Good for the heart 'n soul

Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards began when English immigrants David and Sophia Garrod first purchased land from the Mount Eden Orchard and Vineyard Co. in 1893.

Aging prune and apricot orchards on the property were replaced with 28-acres of chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc grapes. Of those vineyards currently being produced today at the Saratoga vineyard, the first was planted more than 30 years ago by 87-year-old winemaker George Cooper. The vineyard now produces about 3,000 cases a year.

Doris Cooper said she loves producing a product of the land and living among the vineyards. The estate is also the location of an equestrian center called Garrod Farms Riding Stables, for a total of about 120 acres of land.

The family said there's a healthy value to wine cardiovascularly. It lowers blood pressure and the risk of heart disease, when taken in moderation.

Ever heard of the "French Paradox?"

The French are known for high fat and cholesterol cuisine but perplexingly stay slender. Some say it's because they eat smaller portions of food than Americans, and others say the tannins in wine provide for the heart and keep it healthy. Doris said tannins are one of the structural components in wine.

Oak barrels used to store wine cost about $600 each and are usually imported from France. The barrels are stylistic and individual to each winery. But they are all curved in the middle to allow for the bulge of carbon dioxide that has to be released periodically from the barrels.

Wine barrels are often toasted over an open flame on the inside to add flavor, as opposed to whiskey barrels that are burnt.

The noise of bubbling carbon dioxide being released in barrel rooms sounds like an old-fashioned coffee percolator. Two-thirds of Cooper-Garrod barrels are reused every year, and the remaining one-third are newly ordered in March.

"We use history as a judge and order what we need," said winemaker Bill Cooper, Doris' husband. "It's not a science. It's an art."

Jan Garrod, a fourth generation of the Garrod family, and Doris said factors that winemakers work to avoid include sun rot, mildew, land erosion and sunburned berries. Deer problems are solved by fencing, and gophers that eat vine roots are remedied by trapping. These are what Jan calls the "villains of the vineyards."

Winemakers use the term M.O.G.—which stands for "matter other than grapes"—to describe the sticks, stones, bugs and other items that must be separated from the berries. White wines use "whole-cluster processing" in which the grapes are processed without being separated from their stems, unlike the more costly red wine processing.

Jan also explained that the rural charm of farming Santa Cruz hillsides is much different than farming in flat land.

"The vines are struggling more than they would in the nice, fertile land," Jan said, as he tested the "brix" levels of some cabernet franc grapes with a refractometer device.

Brix levels are the sugar, carbohydrate and mineral readings of the plant's leaves, stalk and fruit. The higher the brix reading, the higher the sugar, carbohydrate and mineral content.

To test the brix level, juice from a grape is squirted onto the lens of the device and held up to the sun for a reading. The grapes lining the trellises at the beginning of September were still not ripe. The vines in the appellation work harder than those on flat lands to establish deep roots, and therefore Doris said flavor concentrates in the grapes.

On Oct. 1 during the height of harvest, Cooper-Garrod crews hit the fields to pick at 7 a.m., while others transferred cabernet franc grapes that had finished fermenting, from 1,200-gallon tanks. The tanks, which hold about four tons of fruit, leaving room for fermentation, are emptied to a press that extracts a free-run waterfall of juice from the grapes. One ton of grapes produces about 150 gallons of liquid, Bill said.

A sweet, fruity smell drifted in the breeze, as the pumice was separated from the wine, which would be put to barrel for one or two years. A bottle of wine is about 12 to 13 percent alcoholic content.

Yellow jackets buzzed around Bill, enologist Devin Jones and in-house safety director Dan Carter during the afternoon process, but they didn't seem to mind.

"They get a sugar high when they eat too much," Jones said about the insects. "They buzz all around you, but they won't sting you."

Jones added that the ranch is rustic and peaceful when it's not harvest time. The crews wear old T-shirts, red-stained boots and jeans they don't mind getting dirty and wet.

"When we say hand-crafted wine, we mean hand-crafted wine," Doris said, with a laugh. "There are some days that are physically more grueling than others during harvest."

A pioneer in pinot noir

Linda Hugger of David Bruce Winery in Los Gatos said local winemakers are a congenial group, even though they are all participants in the same California market. They come together through groups such as the Wine Institute, Santa Clara Valley Wine Growers Association and the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association to support each other.

David Bruce, who arrived in the Santa Cruz mountains in the 1960s, was one of the first of a new generation of vintners to lead a resurgence in winemaking in this region. The winery produces between 75,000 and 85,000 cases every year, and is known world-wide, especially for its pinot noir, as well as petite syrah, cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel and chardonnay. The winery contracts with more than 40 growers in about 10 appellations in California.

At 2,200 feet, the 16-acre home-front winery on Bear Creek Road consists of nine acres of pinot noir.

"The history of this winery really has to do with a passion for business and winemaking," Hugger said, adding that many local residents don't even know the winery is right in their backyard, yet it's just minutes away from the heart of the Silicon Valley. All wine produced at David Bruce is foot-crushed by crews wearing waders in the huge tanks, so that the skins are not damaged.

"There isn't anything that makes a better press than the human body," Hugger said.

Winemaking itself is one of the world's longest running businesses, with evidence that it started in the early Neolithic period, which lasted from 8500 to 4000 B.C. Wine was probably first enjoyed by the upper classes, and today is used in culinary creations and paired with certain foods for different palate sensations.

But the average American doesn't seem to be as concerned with the process of winemaking as the winemakers are themselves. On Sept. 27, Hazel Buchanan, of San Jose, toured Cinnabar Vineyards and Winery in Saratoga, during the 11th annual grape stomp.

"This is such a science, my God!" Buchanan said. "I don't want to know what's in it. I just want to drink it."

Los Gatos and Saratoga wineries

(alphabetical order):

Burrell School Vineyards

24060 Summit Road, Los Gatos 95033,

408.353.6290

Byington Winery and Vineyard

21850 Bear Creek Road, Los Gatos 95033,

408.354.1111

Cinnabar Vineyards and Winery

23000 Congress Springs Road,

Saratoga 95070, 408.741.5858

Clos LaChance Winery

One Hummingbird Lane, San Martin 95046,

408.686.1050

Cooper-Garrod Vineyards

22600 Mount Eden Road, Saratoga 95070,

408.867.7116

David Bruce Winery

21439 Bear Creek Road, Los Gatos, 95033,

408.354.4214

Generosa Winery

22630 Hutchinson Road, Los Gatos 95033,

408.286.1016

Kathryn Kennedy Winery

13180 Pierce Road, Saratoga 95070,

408.867.4170

La Rusticana d'Orsa

(not open to the public)

Los Gatos, 1.888.373. 9463

Lonen & Jocelyn Wines

(not open to the public)

15127 Sperry Lane, Saratoga 95070,

1.866.559.4637

Mount Eden Vineyards

22020 Mt. Eden Road, Saratoga 95070,

408.867.5832

Mountain Winery

(winemaking no longer in operation)

14831 Pierce Road, Saratoga 95070,

408.741.2822

Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards

23600 Congress Springs Road,

Saratoga 95070, 408.741.2934

Troquato Vineyards

(wine tasting and tours not available)

Los Gatos, 408.866.6700