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).
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.
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.
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).