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.