Grape Stomping: Step Right Up (and Down)!

Seven anxious amateurs stand behind truncated wooden barrels that brim with ripe red and green grapes. All barefoot, some sipping a glass of wine (the event's makeshift energy drink), they are ready for a smashing good time.

These folks are part of a particular stampede that treads on nostalgia, competition and, quite literally, fruit. Grape stomping -- immortalized by Lucille Ball's comic vineyard escapade -- is taking center stage at area wine festivals.

"It's because of 'I Love Lucy,' " Melissa Foster, 25, says of her last-minute decision to join those ready to romp at the recent Great Grapes! Wine, Arts and Food Festival in Annapolis. "I thought it was much harder than what it looked like. It's a workout."

George Bazaco, owner of Doukenie Winery in Loudoun County, says the fall is ripe for grape-stomping events because harvest season starts in early September. Many wineries host the barefoot stomp, which has been unnecessary to winemaking since the development of mechanical grape crushers, merely as a special attraction during festival time.

"It's much more efficient to use a press," Bazaco says. "I doubt you get more than 50 percent of the juice if you do it with your feet."

Of course, mechanical power hasn't completely erased the value of pedal power. A good ol' traditional foot stomp is still a viable way for home winemakers to break open and destem grapes. (Incidentally, many grape varieties won't permanently stain feet, and any unwanted bacteria introduced are unlikely to survive the acidity of the refined juice, Bazaco says.)

At the region's wine festivals, though, grape stomping is more about winning and showmanship than juice. Some grape grinders seem to boogie best by repeatedly stomping with a single leg. Others -- usually the better balanced -- engage in a hip-swiveling number, hoping twists will add oomph to their step. And the retro-regressive return to the 1980s "running man" move is an ambitious strategy for those unafraid of slipping.

After a heated five minutes of competitive squishing at the Annapolis festival, Mike Walter, an anchor for WUSA (Channel 9), steps out of his barrel -- feet dirty but hands clean -- to claim the winner's trophy.

To Walter, it's a relief just to walk away from the event unscathed. His biggest pre-stomp worry: reenacting the popular YouTube clip of a TV news reporter who abruptly concluded her live grape-stomping demonstration when she fell off a stage and landed face-first on the ground, howling in pain.

"That was my greatest fear: that I would get up here and embarrass myself," he says.

Perhaps Walter should have gotten a pep talk from Kopa and Michelle Kaluahine, who were crowned the world's best grape stompers at last year's Sonoma County Harvest Fair in California. The son-and-mom duo smashed 60 pounds of grapes to produce more than 24 pounds of juice in five minutes, beating about 200 other two-person teams.

"Once you see people doing it, you want to do it, too," Michelle Kaluahine says. "It's a good, fun competition. It's messy. Afterward, you just look like a train wreck. I'll come home and have grape seeds in my ear."