Wine Country Shootout

The quest to be the biggest and best family winery continues, but this time you’re armed and dangerous. Your team has discovered a competing family’s winery…with a window open.  Through the window you see glasses of wine zipping by to be tasted by critics from around the world.  If your wine family members can knock the glasses over before they are served, the parched and disappointed critics will smear the name of the competitive winery like jam on toast in the next issue of Wine Spectator. So, what do you do? You load a specially designed wine-cork cannon and start blasting away the glasses being filled by the other family. Whichever team can get the most wine to the critics, wins.

Cabernet Chaos

Teams compete against one another, frantically stomping real wine grapes as fast as they can. Each team must guide their magical elixir down a copper trough into a carafe riding on a cart. The cart glides along an 8' teeter-totter and rolls back and forth based on the balancing talents (or lack there of) of the team members. If the team can balance well, their carafe stops moving, thus making it easier to collect the flowing juice. With four people on the teeter-totter (two on either side), they'll need to work together to keep it balanced. Bonus juice is added through an ingenious system that rewards the team with better equilibrium.

Wine Bottle Label Design

Your family must design a label for your wine.  You’ll be given supplies to create a giant wine label.  Your family will have to come up with an appealing logo, slogan and act out a TV commercial for your wine.  You’ll have to be witty and creative if you want to please the critics. Extra points are awarded to the team that incorporates their company’s corporate culture.

Cork Building

There is a littler known ancient tradition in wine making that is the source of great pride in the wine country.  With a huge supply of corks the warring families compete to build any number of structures we so designate. It might be a bridge that spans a gap that can stand up to the “crusher” or the tallest possible tower or an object that must be built and then rolled down a ramp. You may only use corks, toothpicks and rubber bands to fasten the corks together. This competition will challenge your planning, engineering, inventory management and teamwork skills.

Wine Country Pursuit

This contest measures a team's wine, wine making and vineyard knowledge. There are a number of different tests incorporated into this challenge and time is limited. First, teams must be able to identify and name different wine opening devices. Then, pair food and wine together in the most appropriate combinations. Team's also match varietal leaves, to the corresponding grapes, bottles and glasses that are appropriate. Teams must recognize different elements in the anatomy of a winery and play a "what's wrong with this picture game". Finally, teams play "match the bottle name to the bottle format" game, unscramble popular winery names and play a dastardly memory game designed to test the teams knowledge of a standard wine label.

Cork Shooting Gallery

Team members will get a chance to knock down different targets (depending on your theme) in this classic shooting gallery with a twist.  The twist? They are firing wine corks from air-powered rifles.

Harvest Helicopter

Grapes baking in the hot California sun must be rescued from the sweltering heat before the crop is lost. Gondolas filled with fresh California Wine grapes must be air lifted from the vineyards to the winery. Four coptor pilots must operate their HCD (helicopter controlling device) in unison to guide the rescue chopper into position. The system uses a series of cranks, pulleys and ropes to control the airship. The gondolas, filled with grapes, must be transported without dumping the precious cargo to the ground.  The ultimate communication game, Grape Harvest will test your team’s ability to communicate succinctly and efficiently when working under strict time constraints.