Author: Kinsey

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Week 3 – Pump-Overs and Punch-Downs

Well, I just finished working 7 days in a row. Last Sunday was only a 7.5 hour day, but then Monday through Saturday were all 12+ hour days. Because we received so many grapes the week before, we had many (almost all) tanks full of fermenting grapes and juice. All of those tanks required morning and afternoon pump-overs or punch-downs every day to mix the grapes and juice. There has to be a certain amount of time between the morning and evening punch-down/pump-over for each tank, so after doing them in the morning, we can’t start the evening ones until 4 pm. This process can take to 3 hours, so we won’t be out of there until 6 at the earliest. Usually there are other things to be done too, so most days we didn’t finish for the day until 7:30 or later. However, on Saturday night, we were able to leave before 6!! We honed in on the most efficient ways to do punch-downs and pump-overs for all of our tanks, and got it done in less than 2 hours! Hopefully we can keep that up! (more on pump-overs and punch-downs later, in the things I learned section).

When I signed up for this, I knew I wouldn’t be doing much else other than working. I knew that harvest is a crazy time, and it becomes your life when you’re working at a winery. However, it is still difficult to prepare for 6 12-hour (or more) days in a row. It has been such a valuable experience to learn what truly goes into making wine. During the day sometimes we talk about the difference between European (Old World) winemaking styles and the style in the New World. Of course, within the New World there is still a lot of variation, even from Santa Barbara County in southern California to Napa in northern California. I think it would be amazing to tour Europe (France and Italy in particular) and visit different wineries to learn how they do things.

All ready to be punched down!

3 Highlights

Learning the next part of the process for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay – how to ferment and monitor and maintain. This week, we only received grapes on Monday and Tuesday, then spent the rest of the week 

Talking to Samra about how she became a winemaker. Last Sunday, it was a slower day so it was just me and Samra working. I was able to ask about how she ended up at Alma Rosa and in Santa Barbara County. She has a really interesting story, moving from Bosnia to work in Napa, and then down to SBC. 

Waking up at 6 am is getting easier! I’ve got my routine down to a tight 25 minutes from bed to car. Then I drive to work, which takes about 25 minutes, giving me a 10 minute buffer. I love a good morning routine.

Bonus: Going out to dinner on the night before my day off; delicious food, good wine, and then still an early bedtime! Toscana Pizzeria in Solvang has amazing crust. I also got one of the specials, the sole piccata. Amazing. 

  • Yeast!
  • Yeast likes wine too 😉

3 Things I Learned

Pinot Noir is finicky and particular. This varietal needs to be at a very specific temperature to ferment, and will start and stop fermenting. I’m sure the type of yeast has something to do with it as well, because different yeasts work better at different temperatures and under different conditions as well. 

Pumpovers and punchdowns: essential but repetitive and difficult! As red varietals ferment, the CO2 that is produced as the yeast turns sugar into alcohol pushes the grape skins to the top of the juice (the grape juice is called must). These skins form a thick layer called the cap. With red wine, you want all the good flavor and color from the skins to be extracted into the juice. For that, you need the skins to contact the must. You can make that happen by doing either a punchdown or a pumpover, depending on the type of tank. For some tanks, you connect a hose to the valve at the bottom of the tank, then pump the juice over the top, soaking the cap and mixing the juice and skins. For the huge bins that we have to ferment some grapes, you do a punch down, which involves pushing a long metal rod with a flat piece of metal on the end down into the skins. This pushes the skins down into the juice, again mixing the skins and juice and also aerating the juice. 

Always secure a hose that’s pumping wine! Or ask someone to help! I was doing a pumpover on one of the pinot noir tanks, and at the end when I was cleaning up I was walking the line to empty the rest of the juice out. As I was doing doing it, the hose shifted and fell out of the top of the tank, spilling juice, soon to be wine, all over the floor. Whoops. 

A successful pump-over, no spilled wine included!

3 Things I’m Looking Forward To

Starting malolactic fermentation on Chardonnay. After Chardonnay is finished fermenting and all of the sugar is gone, it can go through a secondary fermentation. This is called malolactic fermentation, where harsh malic acid is converted to lactic acid. Almost all red wines go through malolactic fermentation (ML), but only a few white wines go through ML. Chardonnay can be one of them!

Learning about process for Pinot Noir after pressing – this past week we pressed our first tank of Pinot Noir that was finished fermenting. Supposedly, Pinot Noir will not start tasting like the final wine product until March or April. Right now, it just tastes like fruit juice. 

More wine tasting in Santa Barbara County! By working at a winery and living with someone who works in a tasting room for a different winery, I’ve been able to try wines from multiple wineries so far. There are so many more to try though! A good activity for my one day off each week. 

Something I Listened To

I’ve been on the search for more podcasts about wine, and I recently came across one called Reading & Drinking. The host, Jill Zimorski reviews books about wine. I just listened to Episode 4, about the book How to Drink Wine by Grant Reynolds. It is a very honest review, and I love her approach as a sommelier: her goal is to discover cool new wines and stories about them that she share with others. She was very genuine and I will definitely be listening to more of her reviews (I will not be reading How to Drink Wine, but hopefully I’ll find another good wine book to dive into!)

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Week 2 – Things Get Real

Wow! What a week. I knew coming into this I would be working hard. However, I was not fully prepared. My first long day was Wednesday, and I was amazed, a 12-hour day! I arrived at the winery a little before 7 in the morning and left a little before 7 at night. Wow. However, that was nothing compared to the next 2 days. On Thursday, a 15-hour day, we crushed about 10% of the grapes that we would be receiving over the entire harvest. That’s a lot of grapes. And then there’s all the other stuff you have to do to process grapes after crushing them, like the punchdowns (pushing the grape skins that float to the top down into the juice so it all mixes up and you get all the good color and flavor from the skins) and pumpovers (similar purpose, but pumping the juice from the bottom over the top of the grape skins). You also have to inoculate with yeast and add any other additions. And then all the cleaning of course! Everything that touches wine or is used in any way has to be cleaned and sanitized before AND after using it. For small things, no big deal, you just rinse it in the big bins of cleaning chemicals one by one. However, for large things like hoses and tanks, they have to be thoroughly rinsed, then you have to run each chemical through each hose for a good 5-10 minutes, rinsing with water in between each step. For tanks, they have to be scrubbed down, which involves donning a rainsuit and climbing inside the tank (good thing I’m not too claustrophobic). 

Lots of Pinot Noir grapes this week! After the heat of last weekend, suddenly ALL the grapes decided to be ready.

Hopefully this gives you some sense of how much goes into each day of production at a winery. There are so many other little things too, as well as transferring wine from vessel to vessel, measuring the sugar level and temperature to monitor fermentation, and general maintenance and cleaning of everything. With all of this, it’s not surprising that the last 3 days of this week, I worked 12, 15, and 14 hours consecutively. That 15-hour day was a rough one. Just sitting down in my car to drive home felt amazing. However, each day goes by very quickly because there is so much to do. There is usually a period of time of about an hour in the late afternoon where I realize “we still have a LOT to do today and it’s already 4:30” and I know we’re in for a long day. It’s all about the mindset you have though. If you go into the day just wanting to get it over with and get back home, you’re going to have a tough time. But if you treat each task or activity on its own and think about why it’s necessary without thinking about all of the other things waiting, the long day is much more tolerable. I’ve thought about that a lot as I get used to these long days. It helps that I’m excited and chose to be here and I’m learning a lot along the way. 

We have fun too. The winery is not a huge space, but it’s big enough that you’d have to have a powerful speaker to hear it from every part of the space. Let me tell you, the Party Rocker Plus does the job. We take turns connecting and playing music, but Samra, our winemaker, plays the most and she is a fan of European house music, so we get a lot of that (luckily I’m a fan!). We also hear a lot of classic rock and some old school hip hop. It definitely helps  you get into a rhythm while spraying down a tank. We also sometimes crack a beer once 6:30 pm rolls around, at the same time a fun aspect of the evening but also a sign that we’re going to be there a while longer. These small morale boosters do make the whole experience more fun overall. On Wednesday we even got pizza! Very necessary to eat well during a 15-hour day of being on your feet.

None other than the Party Rocker Plus. It even has lights.

3 Highlights

Doing additions and measurements for all of the wine that we’re processing. Each day I measure the Brix (sugar level, which tells you how the fermentation is going – less and less sugar means more and more alcohol!) along with the temperature. I also weigh out the things that are being added to the wine (yeast, yeast nutrient, acid), which feels like I’m back in chem lab in college! It’s also fun to see what is going into the wine and why we’re putting more of something in a certain batch of wine than others.

Honestly, the pizza and beer on Thursday night, the longest day of the week. That combo has never tasted so good. 

Learning more about the wine industry from talking to Samra and the other people I work with. She worked for different wineries and wine companies up in Napa before moving down to Southern California and I’ve enjoyed hearing about the different experiences. 

Just some barrels, because they look cool.

3 Things I Learned

Effective use of tools! Find things that will make each task faster/easier/more efficient. Sometimes, however, a task is tedious and it just needs to be done.

Bring food! On long days, we get lunch ordered, which is nice. However, we don’t always get dinner, so although there are some snacks, a real meal is necessary. Weirdly enough, I was not hungry on Friday night. Luckily, I had a sandwich with me, which I didn’t start eating until I realized I hadn’t eaten for eight and a half hours!

A change of clothes is super necessary. On multiple days this week, I found myself soaked. It stays pretty cold in the cellar where we make wine, so it helps a lot to have an extra shirt to change into. Actually wearing the rainsuit, at least the jacket, even when not climbing inside a tank is also key. 

3 Things I’m Looking Forward To

Learning more about the processes involved after all the grapes are processed. There is a lot of maintenance that you have to do with wine until it’s set in barrels or tanks for longer term aging. 

Getting more used to long days. It’s almost like endurance training! I know from working at the PRL at Stanford that the long shifts on your feet are hard at first but you do get used to it. I can feel myself getting stronger too.

Learning more about wine in general. I wrote last week about how inspired I am, and that continues to be the case! I am trying out some new wine podcasts (some from this New York Times article sent by a friend).

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My First Week at Alma Rosa!

Foggy morning in the vineyard.

I started working at a winery this week! Specifically, Alma Rosa winery, located in Santa Barbara County on the central coast of California (almost Southern California). I’m working in the cellar, helping with the actual wine production process. This involves receiving the grapes, processing them (pressing or crushing, depending on whether they are white or red), and monitoring the fermentation process. We also sample and monitor the previous vintage that is aging. This also involves a LOT of cleaning, anything that is touching the wine has to be cleaned, rinsed, cleaned, rinsed, and sanitized. And then rinsed again. And this happens both before AND after using a tool or piece of equipment. 

Chardonnay grapes after all the juice has been pressed out!

So far, it has been such a great experience. I made a pretty big life change to come do this (you can read more about why I quit my job at Microsoft here). After the first week, I can safely say that I am really happy I am doing this. There’s a ways to go before harvest is over (grapes continue to be picked into November), and there are probably going to be some tough days (and weeks) but it’s going to be an amazing learning experience. I think I’ll also have a lot of fun. 

I am enjoying learning so much and meeting new people. I’m feeling extremely inspired about all of the possibilities that are opening up to me after this experience. People keep asking me what I’m going to do after my few months of working at this winery. I honestly have no idea. It’s kind of freeing to not know yet what I’m going to. I’m open to whatever opportunity may present itself to me. However, I also feel like I need to decide (or at least think) about what I want out of life to help guide my decision-making and help me be proactive in going after opportunities. 

When thinking about opportunities, I kind of divide them into two categories: engineering and wine. Both of those have many things nested under them of course, but it’s a useful way to start thinking about the decision. I think doing one of those does not entirely rule out the other, but one of them needs to be the main thing (and an income source!). Right now, I have to say I’m feeling pretty inspired and pushed toward the wine side. I’m surrounded by wine right now, living in wine country and working in a winery. I also just watched Somm III (Somm 3?), and now I’m thinking about all the different possibilities within the world of wine! Winemaking, sommelier, distribution, critic, writer, and so many more. I could even fulfill my 3rdgrade dream and go to culinary school! The options are truly endless. 

3 Highlights

Inoculating the wine! I just love yeast, it smelled like bread when we were activating it and I looooove bread and baking.

Meeting my fellow intern (and everyone working at the winery). It’s been so cool to learn more about what motivates other people to do their first harvest at a winery, and just meet people with different backgrounds in general. At Microsoft I was surrounded by people with very similar backgrounds (and similar to myself as well), so it’s great to just talk to more different people. 

Sampling grapes. When grapes come in, or we go get samples from the vineyard, every now and then we’ll actually taste a grape, which is fun and also a good learning experience when comparing to the data we’re getting from the samples. Wine grapes are so delicious, especially when they’re just about ready to pick. They are super sweet but have other complex flavors going on. 

3 Things I Learned

Don’t wear nice clothes (they will get wet and you will spill wine, along with chemicals as well as plenty of just plain water)

Rainboots (especially comfy ones) are so clutch! I luckily got mine on the day I started, which meant that this whole week I didn’t even have to worry about soaking my shoes. And you don’t have time or energy to worry! There are so many things to think about other than how can I dump/spray this water without getting wet… There’s no point in even trying to avoid that!

Layers are also key! It’s cold in the cellar, especially in the cold room. However, there are many tasks that will get you working and warming up, so it’s nice to be able to take off a layer. In the cool mornings of Santa Barbara County, it was also really nice to have layers when we went to the vineyard to sample the grapes.

Bonus: bring snacks! Being on my feet all day, constantly squeegeeing the floor or sorting through grapes, really worked up an appetite! I prepped overnight oats for the early mornings, and then got granola bars and other snacks for during the day or the drive home from work.

3 Things I’m Looking Forward To

Getting our first red grapes in! I’m excited to see the crushing line

My first long day! It’s been great learning at a slower pace with lower pressure this past week, but I am excited to be super busy and experience the fast-paced wine production environment. I like being consumed and engaged, and I think the coming weeks will be extremely consuming and engaging

Tasting more wine and meeting more wine people! Already this week I’ve loved meeting and getting to know those I’m working and living with, along with an intern at another nearby winery. I’ve also gotten to taste some great wines, and I’m feeling very inspired and encouraged about this whole experience. 

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Why I Quit Microsoft to Work at a Winery

Big news! I recently resigned from my job at Microsoft (heard of them?) After just about a year, I am taking a major leap to go pursue something pretty different. Last weekend, I drove down to California, where I’ll be working at a winery just north of Santa Barbara. 

I’m super looking forward to this new adventure! These next 3 months are going to be very different from the last 3, but that’s kind of what I’m looking for. I’m excited to be trying something new. 

Why, after two degrees, multiple internships, and a year of working full time (all based on mechanical engineering) am I going to work at a winery? And not using my engineering background directly, but actually just doing winery work, cleaning equipment, taking samples of wine, and overall helping out in the cellar as an intern during this year’s harvest.

That’s a very good question. A hard one to answer with a couple sentences, as I’ve been trying to do these past couple of weeks when I started telling people about my plans. On this platform I will hopefully be able to expand on everything that led to my decision. 

Although I have dived deeper into the world of wine once we began quarantining, my fascination with wine goes much further back. I loved going wine tasting with friends, especially having gone to UC Davis and being close to a lot of great wineries (I really regret not to doing more wine related learning while I was there!) Everyone loves wine tasting though, so that does not set me apart. If I just really liked wine, I could buy/taste/drink more wine. I was also fascinated with the culture, and with these people called sommeliers who spent so much time and energy literally becoming masters of wine. They could taste a wine and tell so much about it: the region where the grapes were grown, the vintage, the variety of the grape, where it was a warm or cold, wet or dry season, and so many other details. The fact that so much goes into a glass of wine in itself is fascinating. 

Some time passed, and I begin working at Microsoft in Seattle, close to another great wine region. Some amazing wines are coming out of Washington, and I wanted to start learning about them. I got one of those passes that lets you do free wine tastings at certain wineries, so one weekend I planned to visit some in Woodinville. Plans fell through with a friend and I was debating whether or not to go. My roommate, who otherwise would have gone, was busy, but she reassured me that it was not weird to go wine tasting alone. That really helped, and I was glad to still go because I had this grand plan to start a wine tasting Instagram and I wanted to get some content up. I definitely felt a little weird going wine tasting alone at first, but after a couple tastes, it was no problem. I also realized one perk of going alone was that I was not talking to a friend, so I talked to the people pouring. Those people are great, and because I had actual conversations with them, ended up with a couple extra tastes of wine. 

After that weekend, I  really started wanting to actually learn more. After talking with a friend about doing some kind of online course together, I investigated the options that were out there. At this time, places were starting to shut down because of covid, so something that would be all online was appealing. I ended up choosing the Intermediate Wine Certificate from the International Sommelier Guild. There were courses, a digital textbook, and a wine list to choose wines from for tasting notes. I also had someone to email my tasting notes to for feedback. Very exciting. As I started going through the course, there were some sections with some basic winemaking fundamentals, going through the high level steps. This was amazing! I love making things, and here I was learning about this process that has been developed and perfected over centuries. I started thinking about how people make beer in their garage, why couldn’t I make wine? A little more involved to be sure, but nothing was stopping me. You can make it a pretty straightforward process by buying a kit with just the juice that you add yeast to and ferment. I didn’t want to just blindly follow the instructions though, so I also borrowed a library book (which I enjoyed so much I ended up buying). It is called The Way to Make Wine by Sheridan Warrick. 

I started researching winemaking kits and found one to order. Funnily enough, they accidentally sent me the beer equipment the first time around and told me to keep it, so I guess I make beer too. As I was waiting for my wine kit, I realized that this is something people do for a living too… Someone has to make this wine that we’re drinking right? I had a friend at UC Davis who actually did the viticulture and enology (grape growing and winemaking) major there, so I reached out to her and asked about her experience. As we sent messages back and forth, I was also learning about how most wineries hire interns during the busy harvest season, when they’re actually picking grapes and processing the fruit. Some will hire interns to do the actual harvesting, and some hire interns to work in the cellar to help with the winemaking (and cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning). I found a Facebook group called “Travelling Winemakers: Living the Dream) for people who want to travel around the world and work at wineries. If you are extremely dedicated, you can work the fall harvest from around August – November in the northern hemisphere (US and Europe mostly) and then travel to the southern hemisphere and work in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, etc., starting in January. That is shaken up a little bit now, with lots of countries limiting the number of travelers entering and work visas becoming harder to get. However, there are plenty of wineries in the US to work for!

I started scrolling through this group every couple of days, and on a whim messaged a woman who posted that she was looking for a couple interns to work at the winery where she was the winemaker. I reached out, saying I don’t have any experience making wine but I’m learning a lot on my own and I’m super interested. She asked for my resume and then scheduled a video call. I went through this whole process not really thinking that I was actually applying and literally interviewing, but just taking it as a learning process. I had spoken with another woman at another winery where I applied and never heard back, but this seemed so much less formal. I did the video call with the winemaker, where we talked about the winery itself, and my background, including the fact that I had worked in a machine shop and was no stranger to lifting heavy buckets of sand in the foundry and cleaning greasy machines. I knew enough to emphasize those experiences, knowing that working in a winery involves a lot of cleaning and lifting some heavy things. That, plus my excitement and curiosity, seemed to stand out to her, and a couple days later she messaged me saying that they wanted me to come work for them! I almost couldn’t believe it; why would they want me, with no experience and very little knowledge? Probably because it’s a lot of grunt work, but I’m ok with that. I have been craving more hands-on work, along with work with other people. 

However, there was one big thing standing in the way. She wanted me to start in mid-August. Unfortunatley, in my contact for Microsoft, it says that I have to stay at Microsoft for at least 12 months, or I would sacrifice my starting bonus. Because Microsoft is so generous, that would a lot of money that I would have to pay back. With no way around that, I messaged her back and said I was really sorry, but I couldn’t actually leave before August 26 (my first day at Microsoft in 2019) so I wouldn’t be able to accept. Amazingly, she said that was ok! If I started on Monday, August 31, it would be fine, I would just have to learn quickly. At that point, I felt like this was fate telling me that I had to do it. With that start date, and the fact that it was right at the end of my lease, what else was standing in my way?? (Oh, this great job that I have in Seattle, you say? But what about pursuing my passion!)

So, some more time goes by and I’m keeping it on the down low that I’m thinking about moving to try something so new and different. This was fairly easy since I wasn’t seeing a lot of people anyway. But, I started thinking about the logistics of moving out of Seattle, actually leaving my job, and all the different factors that go into it. Ultimately, I decided that if I didn’t try doing this now, it would continuously get harder, and I didn’t like imagining myself 20 years down the road, regretting never trying this out. Although I had a great job, with coworkers I liked, and was lucky to be able to work from home, I didn’t love the culture of traveling such a large percentage of the year (during non-covid times obviously) and of working super hard just to gain more responsibility and work harder in consumer electronics, something I’m honestly not super passionate about. I also feel conflicted about the travel and process of producing so much from a sustainability and climate change standpoint. As much as Microsoft is trying to do to become carbon negative by 2030, there’s no denying the fact that we (now they) are still producing a lot of waste. (I have to add that the wine industry can also improve in the sustainability area. So muchwater goes into making wine!)

Overall, I would say this is more of a decision to move towards something, rather than away from something else. I am so excited to be taking this huge jump (and a little nervous too). I am going to learn a lot about wine and a lot about myself. And after… honestly who knows? Maybe I will go back to Microsoft, or to an engineering role at another company. Maybe I will continue working in wine. Maybe I’ll go back to school. Maybe I’ll try to start my own business! The possibilities are somewhat endless, and that is an encouraging thing.