This title is posed both to you readers and to myself, for the first four weeks of this experience have been so foreign and unlike anything that I've ever done that I can't help but keep asking myself how I somehow made it from driving L.A. rush hour traffic in business casual for an internship last fall to living in the boonies and coming home from work every day covered in wine stains, bee stings, and sticky grape skins.
The work is tough, there's no getting around that. On my very first day, I was tasked with cleaning the drains, which meant me laying on the winery floor (which I cannot believe I did considering its current state) and scrubbing out inches of grease, mud, rotten grapes, and spiders. So many spiders. I have a running list of things that you should not be afraid of if you work in the wine industry - spiders is at the top. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and though I've never been particularly afraid of them, I have to say that it took me at least one week to sleep okay knowing the plethora of spiders that live in farmland. By now, I've learned what the poisonous ones look like, and I kill most of the ones I see anyway just to be sure.
After the drains, there was a lot of power washing, barrel inspecting and cleaning, and day after day of cleaning massive plastic fermenter bins, which had been sitting outside since last fall. Highlights of that endeavor included many more spiders, a collection of decomposing dead squirrels and mice (at least they had company...), and getting to be outside with a cold hose during some wicked hot Indian summer weather. We finally started getting fruit for real last week, which was really exciting after two weeks of preparation - and also because it was the first time that I really got to see how exactly this whole process was going to work out. As with most internships, it's really hard to just jump in and expect to be productive because there are so many ins and outs of the system that you need to learn. But there really isn't much time here to pick that up if it's your first harvest, so I just ask a lot of questions and try to go into each day with no expectations.
Processing fruit is also not an easy task. Our winery contracts out grapes from probably 15 different vineyards, so when we get the grapes depends on what time they are picked and how far away the vineyard is. Once they arrive - usually in 1/2 ton or 1/4 ton bins - they are forklifted up a gravel road, weighed, and dumped one by one onto a covered outdoor conveyor belt where we sort out leaves, underripe bunches, and mold mostly, but also dried up grapes (like raisins), bird-damaged grapes, rocks, ladybugs, and whatever else may throw off the flavors of the future wine. Our conveyors, which are arranged in a 90-degree setup, then drop the fruit in a destemmer and down one story into the fermenting bins which are then moved into the barrel room to be nurtured for the next couple months.
The more fruit we process, the more fermenters we have to take care of while still processing incoming fruit, which I have a feeling is going to make the next week or two rather sleepless. Now, in addition to the extensive setup and cleanup of processing the grapes, we also have to manage yeast and nutrient additions and punchdowns of the fermenters (to prevent the skins from creating an acidic cap over the top of the wine). Last Friday we processed 16 tons starting at 10:00am and didn't finish until midnight - without dinner. Tomorrow we are scheduled to received 22 tons because there is another rain front coming in and if they don't pick it now, they probably can't pick until next week. While we are definitely improving our efficiency, that's a huge load for four people to handle, plus we now have over 20 fermenters that need punchdowns twice a day. It's going to be a big one. I'm working on my morning pump-up speech now. But actually I'm just going to sleep. I'll post pictures and more details about what's going on over here at a later time (probably not tomorrow). Wish me luck!
The work is tough, there's no getting around that. On my very first day, I was tasked with cleaning the drains, which meant me laying on the winery floor (which I cannot believe I did considering its current state) and scrubbing out inches of grease, mud, rotten grapes, and spiders. So many spiders. I have a running list of things that you should not be afraid of if you work in the wine industry - spiders is at the top. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and though I've never been particularly afraid of them, I have to say that it took me at least one week to sleep okay knowing the plethora of spiders that live in farmland. By now, I've learned what the poisonous ones look like, and I kill most of the ones I see anyway just to be sure.
After the drains, there was a lot of power washing, barrel inspecting and cleaning, and day after day of cleaning massive plastic fermenter bins, which had been sitting outside since last fall. Highlights of that endeavor included many more spiders, a collection of decomposing dead squirrels and mice (at least they had company...), and getting to be outside with a cold hose during some wicked hot Indian summer weather. We finally started getting fruit for real last week, which was really exciting after two weeks of preparation - and also because it was the first time that I really got to see how exactly this whole process was going to work out. As with most internships, it's really hard to just jump in and expect to be productive because there are so many ins and outs of the system that you need to learn. But there really isn't much time here to pick that up if it's your first harvest, so I just ask a lot of questions and try to go into each day with no expectations.
Processing fruit is also not an easy task. Our winery contracts out grapes from probably 15 different vineyards, so when we get the grapes depends on what time they are picked and how far away the vineyard is. Once they arrive - usually in 1/2 ton or 1/4 ton bins - they are forklifted up a gravel road, weighed, and dumped one by one onto a covered outdoor conveyor belt where we sort out leaves, underripe bunches, and mold mostly, but also dried up grapes (like raisins), bird-damaged grapes, rocks, ladybugs, and whatever else may throw off the flavors of the future wine. Our conveyors, which are arranged in a 90-degree setup, then drop the fruit in a destemmer and down one story into the fermenting bins which are then moved into the barrel room to be nurtured for the next couple months.
The more fruit we process, the more fermenters we have to take care of while still processing incoming fruit, which I have a feeling is going to make the next week or two rather sleepless. Now, in addition to the extensive setup and cleanup of processing the grapes, we also have to manage yeast and nutrient additions and punchdowns of the fermenters (to prevent the skins from creating an acidic cap over the top of the wine). Last Friday we processed 16 tons starting at 10:00am and didn't finish until midnight - without dinner. Tomorrow we are scheduled to received 22 tons because there is another rain front coming in and if they don't pick it now, they probably can't pick until next week. While we are definitely improving our efficiency, that's a huge load for four people to handle, plus we now have over 20 fermenters that need punchdowns twice a day. It's going to be a big one. I'm working on my morning pump-up speech now. But actually I'm just going to sleep. I'll post pictures and more details about what's going on over here at a later time (probably not tomorrow). Wish me luck!
