Joe Blanton once barreled a homer in the World Series. Now the former Phillie barrels wine.

The baseball season started each February and often rolled into October, creating the need for Joe Blanton to find a spot every offseason to clear his mind. He pitched 13 years in the majors as a durable starter who hit a memorable World Series home run. A trip each November to Napa Valley in California kept Blanton going.

“We used to call it our pause button from the season,” Blanton said.

Blanton and his wife, LeeAndra, vacationed there without cellphones, drank wine, and ate good food. The pitcher decompressed from another season before another one began. Blanton fell in love with the region and the pause button soon became his passion as he learned all he could about winemaking. He enrolled in college-level courses about fermentation and pruning and purchased a vineyard a few years before he retired from baseball.

Retiring, Blanton said, was “a weird transition point.” He was old for baseball at 36 but still young enough in life that he needed to find something else. The pause button provided a second career. His vineyard sold its first bottle of wine three years later and now produces 250 cases a year of Cabernet Sauvignon.

And the name? That was simple.

“Selah,” Blanton said. “It means to pause and reflect. We were trying to name the wine and it came down to ‘What does Napa mean to me?’”

Blanton started the 2008 season in Japan, pitching the opening game for the Athletics against the Red Sox two weeks before the 28 other teams started their season. He ended it seven months later on a parade float in Philadelphia. The season was a whirlwind.

He was traded to the Phillies in July, providing a needed upgrade 15 years ago to their starting rotation. He made his first start five days later and allowed five runs in six innings against the Mets at Shea Stadium. A year earlier, the Phillies chased down their rivals to snap a 13-year postseason drought. In 2008, they had to do it again.

“I was setting up in the clubhouse, doing my arm care and my stretching, and J.C. Romero had thrown after me and came back to the clubhouse,” Blanton said. “He said, ‘Way to stick in there. The first start is always tough.’ He goes, ‘We got you. We’re going to come back and win. That’s what we do.’ Boom.”

Romero was right. The Phillies scored six times in the ninth inning for one of their wildest wins of the year. It was one of their six ninth-inning comebacks that season, the second-highest total in the majors. They won 92 games in 2008, 39 of which were comebacks. They trailed the Mets that September by 3½ games with 16 to play before surging for another division title.

“It was just a team that didn’t quit,” Blanton said. “We would get down three, four, five runs and it wasn’t like, ‘Game’s over. We’ll cash it in and get them tomorrow.’ We had such a high-power, grinding offense that we were able to wear teams down and that made you feel good as a starter when, if you fell down three runs early, you could say, ‘Hold them right there and we have a chance to win.’”

Blanton, 42, planned to live with his family on the vineyard after he retired. He soon realized what that would mean.

“The vineyard is on Howell Mountain, which really is a mountain,” Blanton said. “It’s kind of a windy road going up, so that plan changed when we realized we have three kids who would soon be in school and you’re going to have to do drop-offs, go back, pickups, go back. Sports, come back. You’re talking three trips up this windy mountain road. It’s not a great trip up as far as driving goes, but there’s spots up there that are beautiful views and top-class wine is made up there.”

The Blantons live on the valley floor, about a 15-minute drive up Howell Mountain to Blanton Family Vineyards. The pitcher drives up often but leaves the work to professionals. A vineyard management company maintains the crops and a winemaker does the rest. Blanton helps where he can.

“There’s a lot of stuff like pruning that’s very specifically done. I let the people who know what they’re doing take care of that,” Blanton said. “I’ll go up there to watch and try to learn the process. Other stuff like cleaning up and weeding and light pruning, I can do that.

“It’s all a process and it’s a rewarding process when you get to try that finished product that you personally know you enjoy.”

Blanton makes sure he’s there when the wine is put into barrels and when it’s poured into bottles. Once or twice a year, the Selah team will sample the wine from a barrel to make sure it’s coming along. The crops are harvested every fall and Blanton brings his children along, waking them up early for the drive up the mountain. The pause button is now a family business.

“We’re up there at 5 o’clock in the morning,” Blanton said. “Harvest comes early. You harvest when it’s nice and cool in the morning so the grapes when they’re picked don’t start fermenting too early. We let the kids skip a few hours of school, give them their rows, let them be a part of it, and get their hands dirty.”

The Phillies didn’t clinch the 2008 World Series until Brad Lidge dropped to his knees, but the moment — Philadelphia, a champion again — started to feel believable three days earlier.

Blanton started his career in the American League, so he had just 13 plate appearances before joining the Phillies. It had been awhile since he regularly hit, yet everything came back when he crushed a pitch in the fifth inning of Game 4.

“You remember being in high school and knowing that feeling,” Blanton said. “I remember contact happens, you see the ball, in my mind, ‘Holy [crap].’”

It sailed over the left-field fence for a solo shot. The pitcher — “Joe the Lumber” was the next day’s Daily News headline — hit a homer. Citizens Bank Park was rocking, the Phillies were rolling, and a World Series title felt so close.

“But at some point around the bases, I’m thinking, ‘I still have to pitch. Don’t get too high off of this because you can lose the game,’” Blanton said. “I just stuck that in my head. Focus on pitching. I remember coming back into the dugout and the guys are high-fiving me and trying to push me up to wave to the crowd. ‘No, no, no.’ I’m trying to find Carlos Ruiz and say, ‘Hey, let’s talk about the three hitters coming up.’ It was kind of like this fight back and forth.”

Blanton eventually gave in, walked to the dugout’s top step, and waved to the crowd. He pitched two more innings, pushing the Phillies to the brink of a championship. Five days later, he was on a parade float. And it would soon be time to hit pause.

“There’s points where you look back and wish it was a little bit slower in your head so you would have enjoyed it, but you’re so immersed in the season and the playoff chase that’s all you’re focused on,” Blanton said. “Some people like to go to the beach. Some guys like to go back to their farm or go hunting, whatever it is.

“Going there, enjoying wine, and eating food was my place. For me, it gave me the sense of OK, the season’s over. Let me catch my breath and relax a little, get away, and not think about it.”