Defying Gravity and Such

Wonderful thing happened to day. I didn't die. Possibly came close though.

I was topping Pinot Noir in their respective barrels enjoying my day. I was at the top of the ladder, pictured below, when i stepped down once step and lost my footing. The ladder was a tiny bit slippery and it's also on wheels. So it took off and I had nothing below me. It happened pretty fast so details are vague. From what I can tell, I tried to grab onto anything to not hit the ground. My arms lost a little skin and half a nail is missing on my pinky (useless finger anyways). And it would appear I banged my head against a barrel on the way down because I split my forehead open above my right eye right where the hairline is. Luckily I have bangs so I still look cool as hell.





Due to either my exceptional cat-like reflexes, my extensive NASA space camp training, or by sheer luck, I amazingly landed on my feet. I'm not entirely sure how tall the ladder is but I know I was on the second or third to the top stair so my feet were a good ten feet or so up before I dropped. I guess I'm pretty lucky because I could have really hurt myself. I am prone to braking bones after all (see left arm). But today was not my day and my number was not up. Tomorrow's my last day at work and I plan on staying off ladders as much as possible. I think cheating death once an internship is enough for me. Now, who's got a beer?

Almost Over

Sorry I've been a bit quiet lately but work has simmered down quite a bit and I don't have too much new things to post. Harvest is over. I spend most of my days cleaning, barrel mixing, and topping off chardonnay. I have truly enjoyed using pressure washers to clean the floor. I don't know why, but it's just sort of an awesome piece of machinery. Other than that, my internship ends in a weeka nd a half. Then I'm off to home. This is a bit daunting because I have about enough money I'm hoping to go on a few trips and last till the end of January. By then I'm going to need to find a job. Which is easier said then done these days. I'll let you know how that one goes. Until we speak again, toodles.

Relájate!

This week has been going by pretty slow. Work has been steady but on the mellow side. Monday I was woken up by my boss banging on my window. I wasn't late, he just wanted to tell me to come in at 8. How many of you can say your boss woke you up in the morning? Here he is:

Also, it's raining. And It's going to keep raining. For some reason I've decided to start wearing this mask more:

Makes me feel like I'm ready for whatever is going to happen even though I'm not terribly sure if I'll ever get to actually use it. This is me in al my afternoon glory.

Until we speak again chaps, Relájate!

Whilst Alone

So my shift has changed for the next day or two. Which means everyone goes home except for me and Andres. And, well, I tend to start doing things when there's no one around. Solo ladder racing:

Things I do at work when no one is looking from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

I was bored at work today so I decided to record me doing something boring. I'm getting new barrels ready and checking them for leaks. Also making sure no living creatures from France have crawled inside to kill me. Watch only if you're bored:

Me at work In Fast Forward from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

Done Done Done

Done. 11 days straight. 12 hours for almost all the days. But we're done. All the grapes for the pinot noir have come in. I won't have to stare at a shaker table for six hours at a time anymore. My eyes are thanking me.

Now that everything is in, our priorities change. Our main focus now is to get the wine in the barrels. The pinot we ferment in tank but the chardonnay ferments in the barrels. This makes a wonderful mess that I imagine Cory and I will have to clean up daily. Hurray! But on the upside, NO MORE GRAPES! I'm looking forward to spending more time in the barrel room taking care of things. This is almost entirely based on the fact that there are two stereos, one of which I can plug my iphone into and jam away. Music really does make working much more appetizing.

So goodbye to my little corner of the sorting table:



And hello to Dennis' secret project. You can see how exciting this is going to be. It's party time.

The word never gets old

Don't have too much to say. Been working 12+ hours a day everyday this week. Going on our 9th day straight. Everyone is feeling it. Looking forward to a possible day off this weekend or early next week. The last of the grapes are coming in this week then we are done sorting and pressing. It's mostly barrel work and tank draining after that for a month. Looking forward to maybe getting a weekend off this month. I will leave you with this gem of a notice I found posted in literally the darkest corner of the barrel room. I was avoiding work then I started reading this. Look at the last line:



Bung hole. Ha. Whoever came up with that was a saint.

This is not pimp my ride

So this week has been pretty crappy in a non-work related way. Work has been going shockingly well in fact with the exception of my continued difficulty with hoses. We are gearing up for a long weekend full of sorting grapes, pump overs, and punch downs, not to mention pressing. But today Cory and I were lucky enough to end our day with a trip to two of our main vineyards, Robert Thomas and Nicole. Holace was nice enough to take us on a tour and answer some of our questions about how this all goes down. Each of these vineyards are within ten miles of the winery and are extremely beautiful. I snapped a few pictures as I was wandering through. Cory drove us out in his sweet ass jeep since the PT Cruiser doesn't have its off road tires on at the moment. Check em out:

Things I suck at

I'd like to take a moment to point out the few things that I generally suck at doing at work. First, is rewinding hoses back up. There's a trick to it. I tried the tricks. Still no luck. I've probably folded up these things 100 times now and I still screw it up somehow, every time. Cory thinks this is pretty funny and I think he's a dick. But alas, what can I do? My inability to wind these damn hoses tests my manhood. I must conquer them before I leave this place.

Next is punch downs. I should just be honest and say I have no upper body strength. Combined with a bum left arm from braking it too much, and basically I can't handle it. I don't mind them terribly anymore. But after about a half hour my hands hurt bad. But you just have to tough that one out.

Watching out for forklifts is also a bit shady. I suck at walking in giant rubber boots as is, but combine that with dodging forklifts that roll around everywhere all day and you're just asking for disaster. I may be the only person to get hit by one in the winery's history.

Putting the destemmer back together is also a royal pain in the arse. I don't think I'm strong enough (once again) to pull the giant plastic part out. And I'm definitely not able to put it back. So I just have to make other people do it. I'm getting good at manipulation I guess, which should help me in the business world. Maybe?

That's all I can think about right now. I'm done complaining. Hopefully by the end of this I will have overcome my puniness. Until then, just gotta keep grinding it out.

Now here is a lovely picture I took on my bike ride to Lake Sonoma today. Days off rule:

It's getting ruff

I previously wrote about how awesome I thought punch down's were which is unfortunate because I think I found a new thing to hate at work. They start off nice. You're using heavy machinery to punch down fermenting grapes so the juice comes out and the yeast can throw a party on their tab. But then you realize you've got 2 more hours to go and it's only been 5 minutes. Roughly 30 minutes into it your hands start to ache. But you just have to keep going. There's no other option. And these have to be done 4 times a day for as much as 30 minutes a day, and there's 9 of these tanks. Rubbish. Here's a pic so you don't have to read for a second:

On the upside to today, I learned that the plastic gas death trap below is called an S type something. I forgot what Dennis told me. But to go along with the whole fermentation "theme" I've got going in this post, I figured I'd show you these buggers. The funny thing is, like most things where I work, I have no idea what they do. But the winemakers love 'em and I just can't take away what immense joy they get from using them. So, fermenting grapes create CO2 from the burping yeast who eat everything insight and then these things bubble. And winemakers, I am led to believe, absolutely love bubbles. Must be a childhood thing. I don't know. It's going to be a busy weekend though. I think the Char-done-a is coming in. I'm giddy like a school girl.

Bottle Rat

Got tomorrow off. Bonza.
Spent most of the day sorting.
Spent the rest helping out production. I quite enjoy the break from sorting. It's good to get rowdy with the production crew. Here's a little snipit of what the line looks like via my new iphone app:



Considering moving to Culver City to work PR for the industry. Random thought.

Morning Conversation:

Syliva: Dane, what size fleece jacket are you?
Me: I don't know. Is it synthetic or natural?
Syliva: I don't know. What's the difference?
Me: I don't know. I've never worn fleece.
Syliva: Well what size are you?
Me: Medium
Syliva: We only have Large
Me: Then why did you even ask?
Syliva: (storms away)

War all the time

Today on the sorting line I pitted a lady bug against a pincher bug. But the pincher bug jumped off the table committed suicide. I can only assume he was a pacifist, possibly the only one of his kind seeing as how he has a giant pincher for a tale. Poor guy would rather die than be faced with killing another species. Either that, or he knew how tough the lady bug really was. Guess we'll never know.

Like I said, some hardcore pornduction went down today. My arms are dead from lifting cases of sparkling wine and stacking them all day. Then there was the spinning around with the shipping wrap which gave me vertigo. Freaking hilarious though. Closest to being drunk at work so far. This is my handy work:

And this is a very unexciting video:

Putisa from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

Then I stumbled upon this machine. I've always wanted to use one. All it is is a overgrown trash compactor. But still, watch how awesome this video is. Its also boring as hell. But it's awesome boring:

Greatest machine ever from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

And putisa is slang for working hard around these parts. We say it about 40 times a day. Great word.

Mini Gummi Bears if you must know

I might have had this post up sooner but the following events have transpired:

1. My pops is in town. We headed down to Graton to eat at a cool place called Underwood. Great food, wine country prices, and cool peeps. Life's too short not to eat food this good. Also, the bar looks pretty sweet. Going to have to hit it up sometime during the week.
2. Stopped by Yogurt Time on the way home. I'm slowly and subliminally working my way into the mind of the girl who works behind the counter. She couldn't understand how I knew she had philosophy class at 7 today. I remember the oddest things about life.
3. Pops brought my bass up. She's my baby and I missed her. Played for 20 minutes then stopped to write this. Gonna keep going. Here she is:

As for the work day today, I spent it all day working the production line boxing chardonnay. But Cory got to do punch downs which can only be described as a real life video game. He uses a monster hydrolic hand-held press of sorts to punch down the grapes. If you could take this thing to a party I can personally guarantee it would get you laid. Here's Cory wielding the awesome power that is the punch down:

Tomorrow's more production. Then the weekend will be full of grapes. And Pabst Blue Ribbon. This is where you'll find me tomorrow if you need me:

Im on a Boat

This thing has some French-ass name, like Fringe or Fangs or Frumps or Fruges. But I'm just going to call it a giant wine barrel. And I'm standing on it. Mostly because I can. Also because its some serious James Bond business being up there. Thanks to Cory for taking the pic in between us sorting the heck out of grapes.

Captain Secret Face

Let me begin with my friend the fly. Late last evening when I was crawling into bed I heard a faint buzzing noise. I turned on the light to find I was in fact not alone. A fly had snuck into my room, I assume by accident, because if he had heard anything about me by this time he would have known I am an exceptional fly slaughterer. I spent the next 20 minutes hunting my new friend until eventually one of us had to win. Well the fly did. But when I woke up this morning, he was laying next to my shoe, deceased. In the end, it would appear I was the actual winner of this duel. Thus, I salute you, Crispin (I named the fly), for out maneuvering me. You will be missed.

Crispin RIP:

As for the rest of my day, it was spent staring at shaking grates for 11 hours. Here is a pic of Cory right before we started for the day. He had just listened to Pantera so he was in a marvelous mood.

If you notice he's sort of smiling a this point. By about 4 today we started to lose our minds. Mostly laughing uncontrollably over nothing, or at Dennis' stories. Speaking of Dennis, here is a video of his middle finger:

Dennis and his finger from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

So yes, Cory and I lost our minds. Conversation ranged from drinking breast milk to health insurance, then Vegas. Oh god Vegas. I think we have to sort another 45 tons tomorrow which will take most of the day. Can't wait to see where the convo leads tomorrow. I just honestly can't imagine it getting any weirder.

Most of my days are spent doing roughly the same things right now just in different order. I started the morning cleaning the bins that were coming in. There were about 120 tons total, and those are quarter ton bins. 4x120=boatload of bins. Check it:

They come flying down this thing then we go ahead and hose em down and stack em:

Then the rest of the morning was spent talking with Cory while we sorted some amazing grapes. We had some pretty heated debates over tattoos. But the grapes. Ah yes. These came from Nicole's Vineyard and this stuff was primo. Hardly any under ripe green grapes or debris. We took extra time and care since this is the first time we've gotten this caliber of grapes in this harvest. The blue machine in the pic below is the de-stemmer and I usually work just to the left of it where the bucket is.

Then we put the grapes (gently) into our brand new tanks. These things are state of the art as far as winemaking goes. Everything is automatic on them so it was a pretty big deal to finally put our first vintage in them via forklift.

As for the weekend, it looks like I have it off. I got work on Labor day, but im getting off by 5 because Hall and Oates is playing next door to my house. Like 300 feet from it. And I'm not missing that for the world. I'm going to sneak in with a walky talky strapped on so I look like security. Wish me luck!

Kevin just told me he popped my harvest cherry. Not cool.

Today was the first real brutal day of harvest. I clocked in 10 hours of solid work. We had about 100 tons of grapes come in today. I don't have any pics and I'm sorry, but imagine half-ton bins stacked 3 stories high, roughly 400 of them. And I spent half the day cleaning them. In 85 degree sun. Bitchin. Then there was the usual sorting in the cellar which is at least air conditioned.

Then it was back out to the press pad to clean clean clean. Future heads up, if Kevin ever asked you fi you've seen the Karate kid movie, then asks if you want to "rake the truck," politely decline his request. My whole body feels dead. I'm too old for this. And it's only the first day. My back kills and my dumb left arm that I broke when I was 4 is flaring up like crazy. Probably should have had surgery on that a few years ago. Oh well. I need to make all this work worthwhile. I need a drink.

Oink

Harvest has begun. Things are going to start getting hectic. My whole body hurts. Also may be getting the swine flu but won't know until I wake up tomorrow. I do not look forward to going to bed tonight.

Forgot to mention

I've been using my iphone+pandora app to jam out at work since we don't have enough stereos. This song came on the David Bowie channel. I've been jamming on it for about a month now. Comes on a lot on my bike rides. Dig it:

Poppin bottles in da club..

This is a big wrench. That's it.



Today was spent poppin bottles. About 1500 of them. Most of you would be like "wow Dane, you're so lucky, you got to pop so much sparkling wine. You must have felt like a rockstar. Just like you used to be when you were cool back in the day." But you'd be wrong. I'm still not cool, but poppin 1500 bottles completely destroys your hands. I can barely type right now. That being said, it was a relief to finally get this done. Our winery had a contract with another vineyard ot make their sparkling wine for them. But that contract has come to an end so it is imperative we erase all traces of them. Still pretty sad to see all the champagne get put down.

Here's a few pictures of the bottles and crates we went through. Each crate holds 670 bottles and we did about 3.





We used this red pallet to let the bottles drain. It's the stickiest of the icky:



I should also say a lot of these bottles have been under immense amount of pressure to perform. While we were working a bunch of them shot their caps off taking Cory and I out. I have a bruise on my arm from taking one that rebounded off the ceiling. I also have a bump on my head from one. Then there was the shrapnel from the corks. Sweet. I need a shower.

They let me play with chemicles! Suckers..

Marvelous things these face masks. With it on I am impervious to all sorts of fun toxic chemicals that would otherwise cause me to cough until I passed out. We mostly get to wear these when we are gassing the barrels with SO2 which is basically sulfur dioxide. I take mine home though and keep it under my bed in the event of an end of the world scenario. Here's Cory below demonstarting the awesomeness of gassing barrels.

I also got to do some real wine making today. Cory called it inoculating but I had a much longer better description. I put various yeasts, acids, and chemicals into 3 tanks to stabilize and help along fermentation. I also got to use a large whisk. Reminds me of the days when I had to whisk 100 eggs at once for banquet food at a hotel. I still got the muscles. Now, it's off to party for Dennis' 40th surprise bday. I'm 99% sure he doesn't read this blog because no one else does, so it should still be a secret. Hopefully going to meet some other interns who I imagine I'll be cooler than. Maybe they'll want to get drunk sometime and arm wrestle. Only the women of course. Party on time.

The walls are moving

First still wine grapes came rolling in today! I spent it staring at a conveyor belt sorting grapes. Every time I look up now the walls start moving to the left. I'm on a permanent roller coaster. Its fantastic. We only did 10 tons today and i thinkw e have something like 400 more to go. If I go blind I'll at least know why. Check out the sorting tables below:





I think its time to do some grocery shopping. Still haven't really eaten out since I moved up here. But I think tonight I'm going to splurge and go to some sweet local place I've been getting a lot of recommendations for. It's called Taco Bell. And I want nachos.

The days go by

Days are going to start getting longer. Grapes are coming in a few times a week. Won't be as many weekends to part-a. Didn't have my camera today because I basically took a shower cleaning the grape presses. Should have some pics up tomorrow of the first still wine grapes coming in. Get your game face on.

Blessings and Bulldogs

Today was a pretty good day all around. We spent the whole day bulldogging, which I'll get to later. We started off the morning with the annual blessing of the grapes. Everyone had to cut at least one cluster from the Tear Drop vineyard directly in front of the winery. A few speeches were made and then we all toasted with a nice glass of sparkling wine. There really isn't anything I enjoy more than drinking in the AM. Something magical about it.

But after we were done with the blessing, it was back to bulldogging. Bulldogging can be several things, but today we were moving the Russian River pinot noir from the barrels to blend in the tank. We basically were sucking out the wine through these splendid contraptions (below) and pumping it into the tank in the next building. A miracle of engineering in my opinion. We'll probably move it back into barrels early next week and I think we're hoping to get it bottled sometime in September. Don't quote me on that.

Dennis also got back from a vacation today which is awesome mainly because he has an ipod and speakers. Also cause I guess he's got some pretty bad ass stories about choppin wood. Don't ask.

August 19th 2009

Just got 3 bottles of bubbly for super duper cheap. Feeling pretty good about that. Cory also suggested I get this device to re-cork the sparkling wine. Lasts about a week now so I don't have to drink it all in one night. For those of you who know me, I prefer not to leave "any soldiers behind."



As for work today, it was spent cleaning, then cleaning, and I also cleaned. By the end of this internship I will be the master of the hose and sponge. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever want to wash my car again. So, now we're just getting everything ready for the grapes that are coming in Monday. Maybe Thursday. No one ever seems to be terribly certain about these sort of things. Makes the job interesting. Walk it out.

*Update- Device works great for putting the bottle down horizontally in the fridge. I was unable to test its ability to preserve the bubbly. Ended up drinking the whole thing. Oops.

August 18th 2009

Exhausted today. Spent the morning rotating barrels then filling them with Cory. Then spent most of the afternoon out in the sun messing with hoses and valves. Haven't been this tired since I started working. Can't even muster strength for a bike ride. Nap time.

August 17th 2009

So I'm one week in to my internship and things are moving along. Today we spent all our time in the barrel room filling roughly 160 barrels with Pinot. We got another 100 or so to do tomorrow. Should be good times. Cory (picture below) is the other intern I'm working with. There is an exceptional amount of time to talk while waiting for the barrels to fill. Today I learned Cory doesn't know who The Killers are. Marvelous.



So good times had by all today. Not too much to say. Other than I've been playing the volcano game and losing. When we fill the barrels sometimes we lose track and are deep into our spiritual conversations about the meaning of life and such. Then boom. Wine explodes everywhere. I am currently skilled at producing volcanoes on a regular basis. But they are paying me to do the opposite. Going to have to work on that. Its hard to watch wine go to waste. Bring's a tear to my eye. Until tomorrow, party on.