Cheers, Thank You

The Eight Hour Day

No more twelve hours.  We're on to the eight hour schedule.  For what it's worth.  Only eight hours, but I didn't get a real dinner break - just shoveled in some food.  And that was made even more difficult by the fact that the SmoCo room is still filled with grape bins, the last trick the night crew played on us.  They put ONE of our gum boots in a grape bin, put it in the SmoCo room, then filled it with more bins.  You couldn't even open the dishwasher.  Fun.  A great trick, I suppose, except that now they've been there for two days.  Peter mentioned having the night crew clean it up today  before they left, but that didn't happen.  So we had to eat in the barrel room which is, naturally, pretty damn cold.

The reason I didn't get a dinner break was I spent the full eight hours filling Diana's barrels - thirty of them.  Cleaned them first, as well.  Sam even wanted me to fill them all via gravity, since the wine was still fermenting and would get foamy.  I got about twenty four of them that way, but eight hours goes quickly.  Plus, I spend the day - a pretty damn cold one, at that - soaking wet thanks to the barrel cleaning.

Anyway, you can only really go so far via gravity.  The wine will come out of the tank, but not up the hose and into the barrel so I had to start using a pump, which honestly didn't even make it go that much faster.

I felt like I didn't see anyone all day, I was just madly filling barrels. And one of them I had emptied and then sulfured a few days earlier - apparently, way over-sulfured.  When I turned it over to empty it and clean it, the sulfur stink was so much that I had to leave the winery.  You couldn't even breathe!   

A Day Off!

Things are winding down, and Alejandra, Luke and I got the first day off.  Yay!  Of course, Diana told me I could work if I wanted to ...  Great.  I feel guilty, but I'm not working.  I'm mentally and physically exhausted.  It doesn't help that I feel like there's no one I can really communicate with here.  Diana a bit; she seems to want to communicate.  She mentioned in a few different conversations that there aren't people of a "certain age" in Blenheim; there are teenagers and old people.  But real communication?  Not so much.  I just feel ... disconnected.  Like I really don't have anything in common with these people.

Anyway, day off.  Had a relaxing morning.  Laundry and coffee.  Alejandra and I debated not doing anything but sitting on the deck.  But we pulled ourselves out of our chairs and headed to Kekerengu with Luke.  It really is a beautiful drive and a lovely spot, but when we get there, it's brutally cold and raining.  I would enjoy watching the waves crash in the rain, but we opt for a spot near the fireplace to eat our lunch and can't really see outside.  As it happens, the Store is hiring, and they provide accomodation - they'd have to, out here.  There's a barista position.  I could see doing it.  I wonder if we could bring the dogs?

That evening, we all meet for a Thai dinner, even some of the night crew.  It's good to see these people in a more social situation.  Even Peter seems relaxed.  There's plenty of wine and almost everyone seems to have at least a little too much to drink.  Peter asks Diana who's going to fill her chardonnay barrels the next day and she immediately answers that I am, which makes me feel good. 

Everything in its Place

At least in the order of how things are done.  I actually took time out today and considered the "wine-making" process.  Stepped back, in a way, for a moment. 

So, the white grapes come in.  They're dumped in a big hopper, go through the crusher-destemmer, then into the press.  From there, a hose is attached from the press to one of the tanks and the freshly-pressed juice is moved.  Then, additions are made - Bentonite, Cerevit, Sulfur.  After the juice chills and the tank settles out, the juice is then moved (racked) to another tank, where it is then warmed and inoculated with yeast and (eventually) yeast nutrients.  So not just pressing grapes into juice and simply letting nature take its course.  So much more complicated than I, in all my naivete, expected.

Diana and I discussed the "flotation" racking today, in which a gelatin is added to just-pressed juice and that then floats all the solids to the top and you rack off the bottom.  Apparently, it would save the winery a lot of money, in that they would no longer have to chill, and then warm, the juice.  I guess in that sense it would be easier on the juice, as well.  I sill think it's nasty.

Transfers, racking, warming, inoculation.  Everyone is doing the same thing, over and over again, and I think that's part of where the exhaustion comes in.  You want a new challenge, but, at the same time, you don't have the mental or physical energy to take one on. 

Some challenging racking today, in that I moved some juice in the middle of fermentation.  Joel and I wondered why they move stuff while fermenting, but I think it's just because they need that tank opened up.  It's fun to do, in a way, aside from the strong hits of CO₂ you get when you open the door.  I mean strong sometimes.  You know you're killing off some potentially important brain cells.  Then you have to squeegey out all the leftover yeast from the bottom of the original tank and move it to the new, as the juice still needs it.  Maybe the whole flotation thing is easier. 

The Contest

Today, Rowan, Joel and Dave had a contest to see who could shovel the dead skins out of a red fermentation tank the quickest, after the wine had been drained out.  Everyone, including Sam, was super into it.  And it was hard work.  You had one person shoveling, eventually getting into the tank, and another person (or people) moving the bins away as they were filled.  Keep in mind, too, that there was still CO2 in these tanks.  I had my money on Rowan. Dave took around nine minutes, Rowan a little over four, Joel won with just a few less seconds than Rowan.  Go USA!

When not watching the boys, I spent the day transferring wild-ferment (and still fermenting) chardonnay to barrel.  Diana was very concerned that the barrels be completely clean, especially the used ones.  They put sulfur in the barrels after they're emptied and, if any is left, it will kill the wild yeasts.  Much spraying out with both hot and cold water.  Of course, how wild is wild?  Vivian thinks if the yeast lives in the cellar, it isn't really "wild."  I'm not sure I agree.  The wine was still fermenting, so it made for a bubbly, frothy mess while filling.  I only had a few foam-overs.

I do love filling barrels, so it's a pretty good day.  I even got to unwrap some new ones.  They come all shrink-wrapped in plastic and with cardboard protecting the ends.  It's like Christmas, only I don't think I've ever received anything quite this expensive. 

Overall, though, this is so much harder than I thought it would be.  I make so many stupid mistakes; as Peter said, after a few weeks of working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, that's bound to happen.  It's hard, though, when you're not exactly sure what the important thing is.  Should I be watching this, or this?  Is it more important to line up the ends of the barrels, or get the bung exactly at the top?  There are just so many things to keep in your head at once, and they're all new.

Hot Cross Buns

I talked to Rowan today about my departure date.  It seems like April 28 will work; however, I really don't feel like flying out of here without doing anything besides working.  I may try to stop over a day or two in Wellington, and get a little readjustment to city life before arriving in Los Angeles.  Plus, I could hopefully head out to Martinborough, the wine region, for a day, take a look around.  I've never been there and it would be good to see.

I just feel like, as it stands now, it will be in a weird way like I was never in New Zealand, despite the fact that I'll have been here for over six weeks.  It's just so unreal.  At the same time, I feel like I'm learning a lot about the culture.  I feel like I could live here.  Sure, it has its problems like anywhere else, but they don't outweigh how beautiful it is or how nice the people are or how its weirdly of a different time, and yet firmly in ours.  Some people trust and are generous like its the 1950s, but there are gangs and miscreant youth.  Guess that could be the fifties, too. 

But food here is expensive.  I don't know how people afford it.  I can see that now that I'm thinking about what I'm earning and its buying power. Still, I brought hot cross buns to work and everyone was excited.  Hot cross buns are tasty and exciting.  In general, it was a fairly good day at the winery.  I had a big chardonnay racking, so I guess Diana still trusts me after the thermomenter thing as the chard is her thing.  Pumped off the fluffly lees as well as clear juice.  This was a tank of pressings, so it was quite dark. They use casein to take out some color, but judiciously as it also takes out aromas.  Good to know.

I ended the day with a superfood addition - a yeast nutrient.  Nasty stuff, waters down only to about the consistency of peanut butter.

Interesting note - you have to have a bank account to get paid.  Seems like everyone is only paid through direct deposit.