It's a fifteen hour flight back to the states plus i'll be getting back an entire day. I'll sleep then.
I’m making it a point to never say no to any social gathering or event or gathering. Maximizing my experience here in Australia is very important. This also happened to be our last weekend off before the fruit and ferments really pick up in work, which is destined to be this week. Work has been somewhat slow, hence the plethora of new pictures mostly from the winery. There are enough interns to run 24 hours, which might happen starting the next week, but when we aren’t 24 hours there are a lot of interns just roaming around for not that much work. And since we finished most of the preharvest cellar cleaning (its never done though) it was slow. That will change next week with red ferments starting to finish and nonstop processing. Essentially Friday afternoon the cellarmaster told us go enjoy the weekend because it will be your last off for a while. So what do we as the St. Halletts intern crew, we go to Adelaide for a night of Chinese food and inebriation. Reason #422 why my industry is the best: the corkage at the Chinese restaurant is 5 dollars per person for an unlimited amount of wine. We showed up with 13 bottles for 12 people. Lots of aromatic whites to offset the Peking Duck. All of the bottles got opened, the good ones were finished, and the ones that didn’t meet the cut were passed off to the tables around us. Then we went out to some of the Adelaide Bars. A very nice way to spend the last free weekend for a while.
That also means harvest is really starting. The harvest schedule for me means 5am-3pm Monday to Saturday for at least the next month, hopefully longer. Its borderline the worst possible time frame imaginable. Waking up at 4 am every day is earlier than one would consider waking up early, but not early enough to constitute “night” and thus benefit from the increase in financial compensation. Do you have breakfast or a midnight snack? It awed going to bed when its light and getting up when its dark. But hey, I’d rather set up than clean up, that is for damn sure. And for anyone who works production in the wine industry, it’s a lot of rewarding hard work and why you do it. I mean come one. Were making wine people.
I planned to post a lot more, and im “writing” more than is being posted, but a lot of it are thoughts about this and about that. Mostly with the comical sarcastic cynicism I aspire to in my life (damn you Edward Abbey). Not sure why I tell you that. Probably as an excuse as to why my blog is boring. A few thoughts/proverbs/philosophies to adhear by which have effected me or the people currently in my life may suffice for your daily philosophical satisfaction.
“An uninteresting person in an interesting setting is still an uninteresting person”-some of you have herd me say that in relation to many people in my/our generation in regards to the social experiences they seek out. Same holds true for people visiting Australia.
“Thinking positively about your place in life helps to create your own ideal destiny”- I wrote that down at work today, at about 6 am watching a crusher NOT work. The epiphany sorta came to me when I relised that even though im on the lesser of the two shifts, based on compensation rate and start time, Im still making more money than I would be at home and I’m in friekin Australia. Checks off my hypothetical bucketlist have and will continue to be marked.
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| you know, just hanging out in the press |
“Think of every experience as a learning experience” This more holds true to working in the winery. I have limited wine knowledge and no real schooling in it, but I know how a cellar works. Regardless there are some practices at this winery that I may not agree with as far as winemaking or production. That is almost more of a learning experience than practicing what I think is perfect winemaking/winery working. This way when I do finally formulate my own methods at running a winery I’ll have the validity in other practices to believe and argue that mine is the “right” way. That’s why being able to travel and work this vintages is one of the best experiences for a life and a career. Sorry only one picture this time, but it was a hard one to get so appreciate it damnit. the picture may be crap, but the job im doing inside the press cleaning it is not crap. after a day of pressing you have to get inside and hose out all of the grape seeds and skins that are lodge inside. This one is not tall enough to stand up in nor is the floor flat at any point. The bag over my head is what pushes against all the grapes with up to 2 Bars of pressure. The camera was on a strange angle when i took the picture, understandable when there is not flat surface, so a corner was used. This however is a sight you would never see even touring a winery.
Main topic of my next post: “other winery practices during harvest”
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