Harvest is in Full Swing

What can I say? It's harvest time! My apologies for not having posted in more than a few days. Well meaning intentions to post have been superceded by my need to eat then sleep. Seems I barely have time to brush my teeth and rinse off the grape juice from my hair before collapsing in my bed. But that's a little more than you needed to know, right? Well, this is the life of a wine apprentice. You learn to live with some stickygoo in your hair and you stop inspecting your hands and fingernails which are often stained purple from punching down reds. You learn to live in your rubber work boots and you don't mind getting splashed or soaked with hot or cold water depending on what you're rinsing and cleaning. What do I mean by "long days"......most days start at 8am to clean, rinse and prepare the equipment before sorting, crushing, destemming and then pressing. We work non-stop until all the grapes have been handsorted which usually means we work through lunch until about 1:30pm. By then, Kay has prepared a delicious fresh lunch for us of freshly baked bread, tomato salad and various artisanal cheeses. We might spend a few minutes playing with the dogs or catching up on the local paper before turning back to the work at hand. The pressing cycle can take a few hours depending on how many totes of grape must we have to press. While that's going on, we clean, rinse and repeat each piece of equipment which means we end our days past 8pm at night. If we're not too tired or sick of each other, we might go out to eat or grill up some chicken or fish on the BBQ. The nice thing is we are all getting into a nice routine with each other and getting a sense of how we all like to work. It doesn't really feel like work. I feel like I'm part of a "family" who enjoys what they do and takes pride in the quality of what is produced. There are no shortcuts here and we're obsessively clean with our environment. Working in a winery, you are very aware of smells, off-smells and the things that cause them. We're talking microbiology, bacteria and such. Being obsessively clean, minimizes exposure and keeps the "fruities" or fruit flies away. I have a lot of respect for the way K & C keep things clean here. I've gone to a few wineries in the valley that have lesser standards. It's not a pretty sight.



More later,
CellarGirl