Souvenir's

In recent barossa happenings, I'm starting to put together my Souvenir's from Australia. Now I know i'll be here for another 2 months plus, but its never to early to start to get organised. I'm going to be bringing exactly 14 souvenirs home from Australia. I know what your saying, "14, what, thats so many you damn american consumer". 12 of them are bottles of wine. I'm focusing on wine from my winery and from smaller but still of great if not better quality than the bigger production facilities. A lot of the wines I can find in the US if i look hard enough and contact their disrtibuters. So it makes sense to ship home a case of wine that I could not for any reason get in the states. besides, it will be great having that wine for years to come as a reminder of this time in australia. souvenir #13, and rightfully numbered 13 is going to be a coopers t-shirt. I'f you have ever had coopers, you would understand. #14 is one that needed a bit more justification and the right timing. I'll set the stage for you. Matt and I are having a lovely day driving down to Adelaide. 25 (75 f), a few sporatic clouds. All of the vineyards sense the impending fall and have begun their sunset like color transformation into dormancy. We stop in at our favorite brewery for a pint of pale.  Adelaide is no different, people happily bustling about, jogging, biking, consuming, drinking, strolling, purchasing, chatting, and living: the best are doing up to 4. Matt's intentions in adelaide was to get a big ass cuban cigar for his harvest party, mine intention was of similar financial value yet not nearly as enjoyable as crossing another task off my bucket list. (already crossed the cuban cigar off, I mean, why not) I was finally going to make it to a store which might help me with my computer problem, and by problem I mean that is probably dead. 3rd store later i find the one that can help me with a mac, the only thing they tell me is that for 75 dollars they can send if off and have it diagnosed. I'm not going to pay them 75 dollars to tell me what I think I already know, that being that the hardrive is shot. So I have resigned to having it looked at once im back in the states. Thank you apple for providing me with a trendy, (typically) userfriendly, slightly overpriced and currently oversized paperweight to lug around australia for the next 70 days. The irony is that i'll take it in to the apple store and some genious will wave his hand over the top fixing it instantly. However, aside from maybe not being able to recover all my data, not having a computer as a constant pull is kinda a nice thing. I'm not neccisarily being more productive, but i'm not sucked in to its vortex pull all the time. An hour on the computer is an hour on the computer, whether your in australia, austria, or austin matters not. back to the main topic at hand, consumer spending for nostalgias sake. Upon deciding not to spend the 75 on what I think is a failed endevour, I walked down the road to Adelaide Hatters and purchased souvenir #14, An awsome Akubra Hat.  This is my awsome Akubra
Now for those of you who dont know Akubra, It is the Stetson of Australia. here you will find a link the Akubras Wikipedia page, and Akubras home page. take a minute of your time rediscover envy.

The Coorong, by Akubra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akubra

http://www.akubra.com.au/


For those of you not wanting to click further, Akubra hats are made from rabbit felt (if my hat gets red paint thrown on it I swear I will eat nothing but meat for a week). Being made from rabbit felt they are water proof, and offer great sun protection, which if you know me, I need all the protection I can get. Another easy justification for purchasing this hat is that I will be spending an increasing amount of time out in vineyards. So why not get a great souviner that serves me a functional purpose back home. I anticipate that I will get a lot of good use out of this hat. 2 cool facts about this Akubra. As I wear it the band inside the will shrink and fit to my head. Cool fact #2 is that this style is made specifically for the Adelaide Hatters where I purchased this hat. Any store that has a large enough stock gets to stock their own style. this the Coorong, is named after a large lake/estuary at the end of the Murry river seperated from the ocean by a very long sandspit. I have seen the Coorong. So its an Australian hat, purchased in south australia at a store only selling that syle named after a famous south australian natural landmark that will go to great use as my vineyard time increases. Great Souvenir.
As for other happenings, work is fine, still doing a lot of cleaning and post vintage rackings and wine transfers. It will be nice to see a winery relax after vintage and what the "normal"workload consists of. The beer that Matt and I are making is progressing along nicely. we set out to make a cascadian dark ale and ended up with more of a hoppy porter. to quote my mother, "oh darn right". We are calling it Heaps Good Beer because South Australians say the word heaps heaps. Its somewhat of a running joke. Couple more weeks and we will be sharing it around, so more on that later.  Also i'm formulating travel plans, like for real this time. The only epiphany is that I'm looking to take the train from destination to destination, might take a little longer, but i could potentially bring my bike, its a more oldschool way to travel, and I would get to see a lot more of the countryside. I'll make my next blog topic about what the travel plans are in more detail.
I'm off to bed, raving for breakfast again tomorrow near from 166 year old shiraz vines. should be fun. I'll leave you with a sweet video that Cam sent me not so long ago. Its all people from burning man reciting different lines from the good Dr's "Oh the Places You'll Go". enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahv_1IS7SiE

SURFING

Last weekend was easter weekend.  As we were close to finishing harvest all the casuals had 4 days off.

strange beauty in clear cuts

Friday went for a hike with housemate Alyssa, some some sweet wildlife (kangaroos) and of course lots of gum trees. Also saw a clear cut on the hike. Apparently Australia needs wood products as well. It was interesting how high up the clear cut was and how much it is hidden from either side of the valley. I don't know if they have replanting policies like they do in washington (can't imagine they do) but it would be nice to see. We were walking along the trail and got pretty up close and personal with a wild Roo. kinda startled us both but we were maybe 10 yards from him. Roo's are real cute, tasty, but can also hurt and even kill you, especially the big males. They will balance up on their tails and literally kick the shit out of you with those rather powerful legs. At this point I had yet to eat roo, so he really had no vendetta against me, and after a brief staring contest (I won) and some pictures, we kept along our trail and he bounded off behind us. Most likely to tell his other roo buddies that we were cool.
Saturday consisted of two things. thing one, dealing with a flat battery in Jackies car, 2nd. wine tasting throughout the Barossa with Jacki. Im starting to put together a case of wine to ship home (not cheap). I'm putting together a case of some of my favorite wines. Focusing on Barossa Shiraz, and a few other blends. more on that soon. its an ongoing thing.

For sunday and monday Alyssa Matt and I went down to the wine regions south of adelaide. Those being Mclarenvale and Langhorn Creek.  Drove down, tasted the wines. Its nice to taste wine from a different region in that region. As a whole we liked the wines. More tannic than those in the Barossa and with an ocean view.  The Mataro's were by far their best wines in our opinion with Oliver Taranga being our favorite.  Post wine tasting we hit up a local brewery called Goodesons. It seems that all the brewers we meet were at one time brewers for a large facility, and most likely after tasting "real" beer many of them have been starting up their own small operations. And thankfully they did, because matt and I get to taste the reward of their labor. We also find that most of the brewers we meet we end up talking to them about various things like their pumps/pipping/brewery setup/next product as apposed to the beer at hand. The day gets even better, post this we make our way our to the beach, Maslin beach (the first unclad beach in Australia). Not sure why we that beach was chosen, the nuddi part is up beach from the parking lot, but hey, it was a nice day and we wanted to swim. To my sweet sweet surprise there was a little local windswell rolling through, and lucky for me I had borrowed a surfboard from one of my winemakers. Surfing ensued. The waves were small, windy, had terrible shape, but I have surfed in Australia now. God I love surfing. (side note: the places you travel are made by the people you travel with. If I don't really have any travel plans with certain people i've decided that sitting on the beach and surfing in Byron Bay sounds like a damn good use of two weeks in june) Carrying one, that night we stayed at a YHA hostel (nicest hostels) in the small beach town of port elliot. Port Elliot is famous for its bakery. I don't think i've elaborated on an Australian bakery yet. Very different than what we think of in the States. Bakery's here consist mainly on Meat/gravy/veggies/salt/and such all contained within pastry. Its their version of fast food, and bakery's are serious business here. Matt spent close to 20 dollars on I think 5 different pastry variations. Matt likes to eat. I had what I akin to a meatball sandwich for breakfast. Thats another thing about Aussies, they seem to take everything that is acceptable and expected in the afternoon/evening, all food, drink, and social manner, and make it available in the morning in a socially acceptable way. thanks Australians for being awesome.
Monday followed with a trip up to Langhorn Creek, another wine growing region south of Adelaide. Interesting enough, Matt work at a winery down here in '10, so the intent of the trip was to visit that winery and hopefully get to taste some of the wine he helped make at a place called Bremerton. We did, and the wines were great.  Infact all the wines in the are were good, with Cabernet far and away being the best wines.
A few thoughts. One its nice to see the different areas really excelling in different wines. The Barossa reigns supreme with Shiraz, but Mclarenvale does Mataro (Movedre), Langhorn creek grows great Cabernet, Eden Valley Riesling, and the Adelaide hills grow pinot, I think.
Either way, a very pleasant weekend.
Tuesday, Matt and I got out beer stuff. yes, we are brewing beer all the way down here in Australia. our intent was to brew a Cascadian Dark Ale, nice dark beer full of flavor and full of hops, a concept that is just starting to be grasped down here. We got some chocolate malt to put into the beer, maybe a little more than we intended as it seems that the beer is taking on a slightly more mocha characteristic than was intended. Not at all a bad thing as the beer seems to developing lots of flavor and hops. Yay beer.
All and All it was a very successful weekend. look out for another blog in the next few days.

Kangaroo's

Australians love their kangaroos, especially cooked rare with a berry sauce. It's like their deer/beef/eagle all warped into one. It's their deer because they enjoy jumping out in front of moving vehicles. They are their beef because they enjoy eating them. And akin to an eagle as the Australian national animal.
Over the long weekend I had lots and lots of Kangaroo encounters as such. Went for a hike, saw some kangaroos, went on a weekend trip and visited an animal park where we were able to feed Kangaroos. Then on tuesday when Matt and I were brewing beer we bbq'd a Roo roast. Lots and lots of Roo.  In all the roo discussions I was referred by Alison to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. A australian children's show from the 70's where skippy the roo helped solve crime. most definitely youtube Skippy the Kangaroo, its well worth the entertainment.
Kangaroo's are really pretty cool animals, they have some of the most efficient locomotion ever, have incredible pregnancy traits, use their tail to stand on, and i mean come on, its so cool when they just hop away. I figured the last blog was increasingly long, so this blog is going to be a little bit about kangaroo's, and more about the sweet pictures of the increasing interactions with kangaroo's that i've encountered

roo feeding

Back home for good beer, or stay in australia with this little guy

too cute

the only country that eats they national animal

just wave it over the flame

"march in a nutshell" the written version

Alright, I'm finally writing a new blog. so for all my loyal fans out there. your welcome. I suggest reading parts of the blog, I anticipate length. Reasons for not writing a blog for over a month include Harvest (no need really to explain the hard work), awsome weekends and downtime (some of which i'll elaborate on), and really the most important, a broken computer. I also Apologise for not posting any pictures to go along with this blog. Go look at my facebook if you want to find the picutres. I've posted some new ones there.
Let me start with the broken computer. About a month ago now, it started acting up and freezing. This freezing was due to the Hardrive, it would start making an uncomfortable clicking noise, followed by no activity.  Ironically it started while I was trying to do a softwear update on my security, well played Apple. To further the ironic twist it completely died on my attempt to back up my pictures to my hardrive. Now when I "turn it on" the main white loading screen with the apple comes up then after about  seconds the hardrive begins its rythmatic clicks. Did I also mention that the nearest Apple store I beleive is in Melbourne. Thats about a 10 hour drive or two weeks bike ride for those of you not up to date on Australian Highways.  After ignoring my computer quite succesfully now for  weeks I have started looking and found a computer shop in adelaide that services Mac's. At this point im pretty sure the computer is done, and I really just want to recover my data. I did however give all my pictures to a fellow intern before he left, So I at least wont loose any of my australia pictures, everything else is backed up on my computer.  Other than breaking my 6 or 7 year old RayBans thats really the only bad news.
In Great news, St. Hallett (the winery I work for for those of you who forgot) has asked me to stay on after harvest till june 1st-ish. Of course I accepted. More time, more money, more experience. I like the crew I work for, I like the facility, there is still more I can learn and I can probably sit in on some blending actions. I booked my origional plane flight home for june 30th, so working till the 1st gives me a solid month of travel. There is a chance I might extend that 2 more weeks (making it 6 months in aus)due to tax purposes (that two weeks could be worth upwards for 4k depending on how the tax laws read. more on that later.  The Other very good news is that I have secured a harvest position for 2012 North American harvest at Ridge Vineyards. I will be working both in Sonoma and in the Santa Cruz mountains. I'll be helping out with vineyard sampling in sonoma and the santa cruz mountains then getting to make the wines up at Ridge's Monte Bello Facility.  Its going to be a smaller harvest in regards to tonnage but the winemaking practices, quality, and learning experience appear like they will be the best yet. Words can not describe how excited I am to get to be part of making the Monte Bello wine and living near enough to santa cruz again. More on all that later as it develops. Oh, and you could probably all visit, its a lot closer than oregon. Do yourself a favor and check out the Website for Ridge Vineyards, they have some very cool vineyard maps and a nice display of the wines.
On to what i've been up too.  Since the last post, which was like middle of Febuary A lot has happened as you would expect. Harvest was in full swing, we now have only  fermenting tanks left, all the other wine is in tanks in various stages of going into or out of barrels spread across the tanks of the winery.
 My main job for the last month has focused on pressing the reds since we finished getting in all of our whites a month ago or so.
Red Wine Pressing in a nutshell:
1. things to remember, red wine is fermented on the skins, so we do not press it off right away like we do white grapes.
2. First we must drain the wine not soaked up in the skins (the skins float creating what we call a cap.
3. Then we must get all the skins into one of the various presses we have through any number of processes. This is usually the most physical part involving scrapping, digging, pulling, cursing, poking, crying, shoveling, kicking, crumpling, throwing, followed by more cursing. Some tanks are harder than others, and some grape varieties create a more or less dense cap. it also depends on how long its been in the fermenter.
4. Press the shit out of it. because we are making a giant, bold, flavorful, tannic wine. (Dads favorite style) we literally press the shit out of it. Making Shiraz is not the finnesse winemaking that Pinot Noir can be. We beat the crap out of our grapes to make the style of wine the Barossa is known for.
5. empty press of the dry skins, which get taken off by another company who distille it make an number of alcohol based products including spirits which we then use to fortify some of our wines.
6. clean. The press, lines, tanks, flood, clothes, all need to be cleaned after this is done.
I like pressing, Its a pretty fun job with a lot of parts to it and you get to taste the wine right as it becomes dry wine.
Now to go weekend by weekend highlighting all i've done. Now I say weekend loosly because I really only have had sundays off until the last week. But Matt (intern who i worked with at elk cove) also has sundays off, and his winery gave him a car. we have not yet had a bad weekend.
The weekend of March 2nd started with a mexican feast due to the number of Americans Present. I think out of 12 there were 5. Thank you to Syd (reasercher for Gallo) for providing the excuse to make homemade Mole Sauce and slow cooked chicken and pork. If you know me you know that Mole is my favorite flavor, combine that with slow cooked pork and some great Reisling I was in food heaven. As were most people around the table. I proudly ate the leftovers for breakfast/lunch/dinner. That next day being sunday we wine tasting, including a trip to Jacobs Creek (pretty much some of the worst wine possible, but they are synonomous with the Barossa valley. It was worse than we all imagined, and we expected bad. Then we Follwed all the asian tourists to their next mandatory stop at Penfolds. Penfolds is another large famous winery in the Barossa known for "Grange", a 700 dollar tannin bomb meant to age 30 years. we refered to that day as our corporate tasting.
The weekend of march 9th consisted of Matt and I going down to Adelaide in search of the Coopers Brewery. We found it, but apparently on sundays they arn't open for a tour, tasting, or t-shirt buying. Bummer. My only two souvinears from Australia are going to be a steriotypical aussie hat to wear out in the vineyards and A coopers T shirt. Upon Failing to make it to the brewer we just went and walked around Adelaide, I found some boardies, made our way out to The beach at Glenelg, swam in the ocean for the first time, and found a beachfront pub to enjoy some hoppy beer and a burger. Not a bad sunday.
Weekend of March 16th, St patty's weekend, we out with the Two Hands Crew, thanks guys for making me really feel that ten pounds of fat i've lost. drank green beer, went wine tasting on sunday to some cool spots, including giving a tour at St. Halletts to Matt and another intern friend Ashley. Went to Matts place for an impromtu bbq only to be joined by his Swiss houemates and some backpackers picking nearby vineyards. Not every day you show up to an impromtu bqq only to find a Case of 1998 Cab Shiraz, 6 europeans, the 3 of us americans, great food and some good laughs. Just thankful to be where I am with the experiences gained. Oh, and we used a 1000 ml erlenmeyer flask as a decanter.
March 24th. Mission, finding good beer. Not hard for Matt and I to do. We Found it, at the BierHaus in a town in the hills behind Adelaide. The Brewer was a great guy, we tasted through his lineup, which included a double IPA. Now the Aussie beer (coors/bud equivelent) is equally as bad as it is in the states, only they drink more to their local shitty beer.  The Microbrew scene is just developing, this places being on of the more respecet and In my opinion better locations around. Matt and I are so used to drinking insanly hoppy beers that that is our standard. they are coming around to that here, just not quite as intense as what we are used to. In some ways though they are making a more accessable well rounded beer, not the alcoholic hop water we sometimes used to. In other beer related news, Matt and I are going to brew a black IPA hopefully on tuesday. We cheating slightly by using half extract due to limitations in our soak, but hey, we still going for it. Unfortunally as I write this our ingredients are sitting in the post office which is closed for 4 days due to easter weekend. I know my stuff is there, I just cant get it till tuesday afternoon, bummer.
March 28th: The Harvest Party. Oh Barossa winery parties. The first one I went to killed my phone, so I was mentally prepared and took extra percautions for this one.  For our end of harvest party we all went to the local country club for a friendly round of Golf. Now I like golf, I was pretty pumped on getting to go for a round. I have not yet surfed in Aus, but i sure have played a round of golf. The costume theme for the party was "formal to the waist, the rest in bad taste", it did not matter which "to your waist" was formal and which was in bad taste. I went with more of a tacky golfer look. Each team played the best shot out of their teams hits. so driving, approach, and putting were all played off the best shot for each. that made team oriented and a lot of fun. That and the Winemaker driven beer cart that would come around almost every hole. My team ended up with a bogy on every hole except the last which we got par. Not bad. the winning team was 3 over Par, but also consisted of a lab tech who is from St. Andrews.  Were were bussed back to the winery, where there was pig roasting on a spit, more beer, a bottle of mezcal with a scorpian in the bottom, and a 6 liter bottle of 1998 Old block (so so so good) Dinner of course was great, speeches were given, thanks were given, I recieved the Hose Rose trophy for what my bosses said was for my hard work and positive attitude. My name will forever be engraved onto a homemade trophy sitting at St. Hallett's winery in South Australia. needless to say I Broke a peice of the Trophy off later on... oops. but hey, for that night it was mine to break. And easily fixable peice.  Kareokee, deserts, dancing on the cellar door bar, more wine and Mezcal were consumed until our ride home became our ride home.  Normally I would not post drunken stories onto this Blog for various reasons, and except for one very unfortunate 4th of july incident involving Brennan Davis and a beer pong table, are usually pretty tame in in control. To me this was just to funny not to tell. first off it doesn't involve me persay as the drunk culprit, but another intern. We are being drivin home by one of the winemakers, making a stop at a town opposite mine first. This other intern starts to throw up in the car, I tell the driver to pull over and pick us up on the way back pushing the overly inebriated eployee out the door. it took me all of about 5 seconds to realize that if the winemaker does not come to pick me up, this is going to be a decent walk home. Anyway, the drunken intern is busy stumbling around and "fertilizing"some Orlando vineyards (think of this next time you drink Jacobs Creek people). we get picked up, thankfully, drunken intern has nowhere to stay and he isn't staying with the winemaker, so he gets to stay at my house, yay. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people go out drinking as such without arrangments for a place to say. In hindsight he should have slept in his car. back to my front door im not convinced he is done throwing up, and im not letting him sleep on the nice couches in such a state. so i get a glass of water and we go for a walk. Impatient drunk me decides that drunk intern should do jumping jack's and pushups to relieve any discomfort that his stomach may still have. It worked. And then he slept on the couch. We will head this as a warning that if your drunk ass ever gets put into the very capable yet impatient hands of my drunk ass you probably will end up doing some sort of calesthetic excersise to prevent the potential for throwing up anywhere inside my house.  I think the winemaker just took the pressure washer to the inside of his car. Oh end of Vintage Parties.
March 29th: Hung Over
April 1st. Alyssa (my housemate) turns 23. We made a big brunch consisting of some damn fine bacon/eggs/muffins/fruit most of which was made on the bbq, went tasting at a Small Zin Producer then swam/lounged around at the Lengmeil pool for most of the afternoon. It was also in that Cellar door which we were asked to join the 15 person pyramid. (refer to my facebook album Australia) Also ot sunset we went up to a local lookout for some cheese and bubbles to celebrate another one of us interns leaving to go back to New zealand for harvest. Really just a lovely day.
April 3rd. Matt and I found our way to Adelaide to take a friend to the airport and found a pub run by a couple of beer loving lesbians called the Wheatcheif. This is so far the only place in South Australia we know of where you can get a plethora of american microbrews. we had a pint of some western australian beer called Hop Hog.
April 6th: being today, good friday, nothing is open, Alyssa and I drove up to this local protected area and went on a hike. We saw 4 kangaroos and some nice views. The more and more i look at the local trees and plants the more it looks different from those back home. Maybe i'm noticing the differences more, but they remind me less and less of back home. that brings us to right now. the rest of this weekend for me is going to consist of wine tasting up in the Claire Valley and Down in Mclarenvale. the other two significant wine growing regions in South Australia.
Some other happenings:  Since starting work NOT at 5am like the first 5 weeks for so, but at 7, im comfortably able to ride my bike to work, which I have been doing for the last 3 weeks. thats helping to stay in shape as well as getting that little adrenaline rush in the morning. It makes biking up to the markets that much easier. also seeing as how its my only real form of trasnportation thats kinda of it.  I'm also putting a little bit more muscle back on due to the bike, and as I've said before with the decrease in good beer and fried food, i've lost 10 lbs or so being in this country.  Another thing i've done periodically over the last month or so is drive. Let me remind you that here in australia they drive on the opposite side of the road from what we do back home. so that means just about everything is opposite. It started with me volunteering to be a DD so i could drive and has extended beyond that on a number of occasions. Driving on the opposite side of the road looses its novelty after about 30 seconds, then it just becomes driving. Having now logged somewhere between 3 and 4 hours of driving time, i dont even think twice about pulling onto the correct side of the road. Parents you would be very proud of me that almost all of that driving has been done in manuel cars. Just about the only thing thats not different is the manuel gear box. First is still far left moving twords you, same as it is stateside.  Thats it about now. the only other news is that I borrowed a surfboard and may getting a session in on monday morning or sunday evening, or ideally both. i'll do what i can to stay more on top of my blogs and maybe put some pictures up, but really check out the pictures via my facebook.

Environmentalism sells

I have not yet used this media platform yet to complain or bitch until now. But this one is really bugging me.  So enjoy the short rant. Hopefully it will change your mind. 

What you may ask is bothering me much to dedicate a precious blog post to the topic. The answer lies in the children’s classic by the good Dr. Suess known as the lorax.  Let it first be known that I would like to send my condolences not to the family of Dr. Suess but to Theodore himself for his conscious classic being exploited to the point it currently is. Environmentalism sells, and sells very well. What we are observing with the incredible amount of product attachment to “The Lorax” is the environmental bubble meeting its inevitable needle. Brace yourself for the burst people.

            Need an example. Go count how many nalgeens, keens, or any other variation of stainless steel, BPA free environmental water bottles you have. How many do you think you need? What the plastic water bottle was, the environmental friendly one has taken its place.  Now Before you come riding in on your ass trying to pull me off my high elephant, let it be known that I have very much for anti thneeds and trying to be sustainable local. I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m not perfect, but I make a solid effort. 

            What does the Lorax stand for? For a logger, the lorax is (well was) a damn hippie trying to ruining his job, I think the housing crash is really to blame for their job loss. So for a logger, the Lorax’s last name should be Lehman. For Random House, its always meant a nice profit, one im sure drastically increased upon slipping into bed with Universal.  For 60%, or 3 out of the 5 people who read this blog, it may represent a thneedless week in Yosemite, the Mojave, The big Sur coast, The Olympics, Zion, or any number of trips that one time happened.  For me it’s the one thing I hold any real nostalgia for. If my house was burning down and I could take with me 4 items my copy of “The Lorax” and my truffela seeds would be the first 2. And then probably the original printing of one of the lorax pages hanging in our dinning room for number 3.  Many of my most memorable experiences were spent in a lorax-esque environment, if you were their for any of them you know what I mean. I know all the words by heart.  My copy goes with me everywhere in the world as a reminder of home, all the amazing trip experiences, and to strive to be a better person in the way the lorax portrayed. 

            Im not sad about the lorax being made into its second movie, there is an animated version of the original story. What does trouble me is the selling out of something I hold close to my heart and head.  What bothers me if the exploitation of this specific book, which preaches in a very simple way against most of this things the movie is trying to sell. It would be no different than if “On the Road” or “The Monkey Wrench Gang” were made into feature lengths utilizing their appealing anti messages to sell very mainstream products.  Hang on, I take that back, if the monkey wrench gang ever were to be made into a feature length its add campaign would suffer greatly at the hands of the George Washington Hayduke society.  Do not think for a minute the people putting out the movie are doing it for environmental reasons, it’s not only a classic cute entertaining story, but a convenient message for a larger product marketing campaign.  Pessimism be damned I would rather have that be the message than anything else. I for one will not being seeing this movie in any way, shape, or form more as my protest to all the products attached to it.  HP, Target, and Mazda are three of the big contract sign ins. Mazda really, I understand that it’s a hybrid, but it would make so more environmental sense to be selling bikes, local eating and staycations. But no, they sell a Japanese car by the company that has huge majority of its manufacturing in Hiroshima of all places.  I wonder if the Lorax would support shipping that car across the pacific ocean.  This hypocritical statement comes to you from a guy who drives a Nissan and a Honda.  Again, not perfect

            The point that I’m most likely failing for portray is that environmentalism sells, and a thneed is a thneed even if it has the words “sustainable” and “environmentally friendly” printed on it. Please think twice before you make your next purchase, meal decision, or weather or not you really want to see “The Lorax”. If you do decide to see the lorax, please do it for the entertainment factor, not for its “message”or what its ‘message’ might mean to you.  I apologise again for terrible writing and for bitching on a blog, I have now leveled up or down (whichever is worse) in the internet blogosphere.

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There are too many small organisms in this country that are trying to eat me

Reason # 22 why living with a microbiologist is the best. When you find a flea on the cat, you take it, dunk it in bourbon (for the dye of course) then throw it underneath a microscope. Because of course there is a microscope in next to the dinning room table. Why wouldn’t their be.

            Today is my Sunday the 26^th. Dad I hope you had a great birthday in I think Paris, but maybe it was Rome. Either way I was not able to contact you due to time zones, technological limitations and well my work schedule. For however long dad was in Europe there was a member of my immediate family staggered in roughly 8-hour times zones. We were the family version of a globlized company. Well done family. 

            Early in the week the winery asked us (day shift interns) if we would be interested in being the “wine drinkers” in a photo shoot the cellar door was doing for promotional reasons. They promised us a cheese platter and a bottle of wine for our efforts. Of course we did it. We got what we were promised and the only comment we made to the photographer was that we hope he can edit out the bags under our eyes. 

            St. Halletts, like most wineries in the barossa valley got its start making fortified wines. They still have barreled fortified in the cellar, so one day after work we were lucky enough to taste 5 different fortified from 5 different vintages all being different varietals. Now I don’t know much about fortified per say, so this turned out to be a very good learning experience. You really could follow the age progression from 80 (the oldest) to the 92’ (youngest) as well as tell the difference in varietals. That availability of tasting isn’t that uncommon in the Barossa, but for someone coming from the states, where we don’t have as much history around fortified, it’s a pretty big deal to taste through.

            Friday afternoon was I was lucky enough to have a very unique experience.  You don’t know these people, but Matt, Jackie and I went for a beer after we were all done with work. Matt and Jackie are two of the three other interns I worked with in Oregon, and now were all working within 10 kms of each other in Australia. That’s pretty cool to be able to do something like that. The only real differences were that the beer was coopers not ninkasi, and Rachel (the 4^th intern) wasn’t present.  Sorry Rachel.

            We have pretty much officially gone to two ten hour or so shifts, mine being from 5am-3pm 6 days a week. I get Sundays off. Financially Saturdays would be the better day off, but hey, I’ll live. 60 hours a week at the rate I’m being paid is still good money. That being said it takes it out on you working a physically demanding job with those hours.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything though, especially a 9-5 commuting job. No thank you.

Saturday felt like the real first day of the type of vintage I expect. 5am you hit the ground running, samples, pump overs, pressing, rackings, more samples, more pump overs, transferring juice, inoculating tanks, tasting the BM45 tank(yeast strain), eating my sandwich which cleaning a tank, boss hands you a beer, oh shit its 3pm, finish the last job only to have the last tank overflow on you covering you in Riesling juice (twice the sugar content of coke, hence why my cloths might start fermenting). No time for lunch, literally running between jobs, two people to do what there is usually 5 to do, best day of vintage so far.  And that is after a night out at the two hands intern house hanging out having some wine. (I’ll elaborate on what all of those winery jobs are later on in this blog)  That is more of a description of what an interns life is during harvest, but not complete. Maybe over all of these blogs you/I will be able to get a better grasp on how to describe the lifestyle. 

Saturday night I went with Matt to a 50^th birthday party for a local winemaker. The party was held at a house on the Lengmeil winery property. Now I’m sure I’ve mentioned lengmeil in at least one of my other blog posts about wine to look for if you get a chance. No sense in telling you why again, I’m just reiterating it. The winemaker whose birthday it was now helps with the production of soul growers. That’s literally all I can tell you because that’s all I know. Matt has the hookup though we will check it sometime very soon. The man known as Westie was previously the winemaker at a place right up the road from St. Halletts called Rockford. Now Rockford (I cant imagine you can get it in hitimes, but its worth a look) is a winery that utilizes only oldschool technologies. They make some really unique wines in the area due to their difference in handling the fruit.  All of the wine that was present was from that winery from 97’ – 02’. The highlight bottle of the night was a 1997 basket pressings Shiraz from a 6L bottle. Did I mention that a local microbrewer brewed a batch up just for the party. Apparently there were cases upon cases and a lot of guests went home with bottles, somehow I missed out.It would have been a nice consolation prize as my phone was a casualty of an overflowing pool due to a sort of contest of the belly flopping causing many a surge.  Its not so much the phone but the battery in that it struggled for 3 days before completely loosing its charge and not holding a new one. #shithappens, #reasonsIdon’townaniphone.  The wine industry is probably in the top 5 for industries that know how to party.  Were not talking wine bars and posh tastings, were talking the best wine, which directly correlates with some of the best food (wino’s know how to cook), at some of the most beautiful estates.  Plus a lot of like minded friendly individuals; you have the makings of a memorable party.  Before you formulate your counter argument, just remember who makes all those bottles of Cristal you aspire to one day drink sitting in a club table.

just a few fortifieds to taste after work, nbd

sorry jacki, but i had to post matts face telling this story

Sunday was my day off, woohoo day’s off.  Sunday started at something called a breakfast rave. I’ll allow you a moment to think about what that could actually mean. The most perfect way to describe the breakfast rave is that if Zane lamprey were ever to shoot an episode of Three Sheets and get Three Sheets with a bunch of winemakers, this is where his morning after hangover cure would take place. I think my level of inebriation the night before was more due to delirium from 5 am starts as apposed to the alcohol consumed. Locally grown food, coffee and tea from local producers, pleasant scenery, a pretty girl singing pretty songs with pretty guitar music being played. Other than maybe a Sunday morning surf with just my friends out I cant think of a better way to enjoy a Sunday morning. It’s all non-profit and at the end you can take some of the food home that doesn’t get consumed.  Its once a month with an ever changing location. When you live in a small farming/wine centered valley, these kind of social occasions bring every out. Its something that wannabe hippies would think is overly cool and trendy until all the families and kids and travelers like myself show up. Here its just a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.  Of course we went wine tasting in the afternoon. I have a recommendation for any of you who are really interested in getting the feel for a wine area, seek out the place that is pouring wine from a lot of small producers. It might be called a winemaker studio, might have a name that represents the place, Like A “A taste of Eden” like the one I went to. The valley next to us is the eden valley known for its Riesling, and by far the prettiest place I have seen yet in Australia.  All the wines that were poured were from different years/different winemakers/and different areas. You may not taste the “best” wine, but you are able to gain an understanding of a place quicker than just seeking out the wineries in the tour book. Look for Eden valley Rieslings if you’re looking for a white from aus.  

I know I keep saying that I’ll post about winery workings during vintage. I’ll get around to it soon enough with pictures to follow. Not a lot of time for the Internet with everything else that’s been going on. I know one of the main reasons I keep up with the blog posts is because it helps me keep track. Highlighted subjects of the next blog post may contain more on my living situation, finding a phone and related (miss) adventure, and winery happenings.

The only two more things I want to say are. Everybody should go get a clothesline, dryers are nice for the occasional thing but we live in southern California.  And you should all go listen to the song “all my friends” by LCD soundsystem. 

"I Can Sleep When I'm Dead"

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.

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”