Go Somewhere Purple (Apparently That Means Crushing Grapes)

My 52 List this year has a few carryovers from last year – ideas I loved, but never quite got around to.

One of those was the challenge to “Go somewhere purple.”

When I first wrote it, I had something very specific in mind – a lavender farm. There’s one that’s a 3-hour drive away from us, Kaooroomba Vineyard and Lavender Farm. I’ve been eying it off for a while, given we love visiting vineyards and trying new wines, and it just sounds downright beautiful. I figured find a camping spot nearby, take the caravan out for a weekend, and make a trip out of it.

Then, an opportunity came up to do something completely different, that also satisfied the “purple” criteria – grape crushing!

Stanthorpe Apple & Grape Festival

Stanthorpe is a rural town in the Granite Belt region of Queensland – our home state. At this point, I almost consider it a home-away-from-home; we visit it that often. It’s the home of some of our favourite wines (if you ever get to visit and you’re a red wine lover, then I insist you visit Tobin Wines).

Every two years, they host the Apple & Grape festival, a 10-day celebration of the region’s wine and produce. There are parades, wine events, markets, live events….the works. I’ve been wanting to go for years now, but for one reason or another, we’ve just not been able to make it work.

This year, my mother-in-law suggested a family trip out there, and at the same time, we could participate in a grape-crushing competition.

Get messy and do something silly?

I’m in.

Grape Crushing

The Grape Crushing event is on their “main weekend”, the second weekend of the festival. There are 4 vats set up in the street, where teams attempt to make as much liquid as they can. More often than not, it turns into a bit of a food fight and a very messy affair.

My sister-in-law had purchased some “nonna” scarves (celebrating their family’s Italian heritage), so we proudly donned those. My mother-in-law had also bought event shirts for us. I wore boardies I wouldn’t be upset about staining, and made sure I had a bra I wouldn’t be upset about throwing out afterwards.

What I hadn’t considered was what to do after the event.

Which meant I didn’t bring a change of clothes.

Or a towel.

I ended up begging my husband to run into a shop and buy the cheapest towel he could find because there was absolutely no way I was getting into the car like that.

When it was our turn, we got paired up with a couple of women who agreed they were ready to get as messy as possible. We climbed into the VAT and discovered it was way more slippery than I had anticipated. No wonder there were steel beams to hang onto!

As soon as they yelled “start”, we all madly started running in the spot. I was in front of the hose that poured into the glasses, and unfortunately, it was perfectly sized to get clogged by grape skins. An official and I took turns sticking our fingers in the hole to clear it.

Naturally, I seized the opportunity to make a number of extremely mature jokes about fingers and holes.

In hindsight, if I’d realised this was part of the job, I would’ve trained a lot harder. *wink

When I wasn’t being rude, I was either running on the spot or throwing grapes at the other teams. My archenemy was a young kid in the team opposite us, so we spent a lot of time throwing grapes back and forth. We were soaked and absolutely covered in grotty feet-squished grape skins!

Unofficial reports suggest that at some point, I may have tossed a couple over my shoulder to ensure both my sister-in-law and mother-in-law also had their fair share.

The time passed extremely quickly, but I was thrilled that our team ended up filling 9 cups. Alas, the team opposite us managed to fill 11, so we didn’t win our heat (I’m not sure about the other two teams in the round).

The experience was everything I had hoped for – lots of laughs, and a terrific bonding experience.

The aftermath

As soon as I hopped out of the VAT, I tackled my son and rubbed as many grapes onto him as I could. Then I tried to give my husband a cuddle, but for some reason he refused my advances! I’m really not sure why.

We got showered off in the street after the event, but honestly, I don’t think it helped that much.

After towelling off, we made our way down the street to a cafe. My in-laws had planned ahead and changed clothes, but I just put my towel on the seat and did my best not to drop any more grape skins anywhere.

At one point I scratched behind my ear and somehow pulled out another handful of grapes.

After lunch we went back to our accommodation, where I stood in the bathroom and shook off. Grapes came from everywhere. They were in my hair, my underwear…it just kept falling out. I tried to catch as much as I could and throw it in the bin, but once I started showering I kept finding it.

I’m happy to report that it didn’t turn me off grapes or wine.

I still have full intentions to get out to the Lavender farm this year (peak season is in our winter, middle of the year, so I still have loads of time to get organised).

But I have to admit – grape crushing was a pretty brilliant way to tick this one off.