Hi everyone! We've been incredibly busy with harvest... I can only remember one day off in the last three weeks. And every single one of those work days has been at least 12 hours long. Really the only thing of note is that last night we decided to go to the local pub, Paddy Barry's, for some Blenheim nightlife.
I wish I had the mental clarity to write a full-fledged entry right now, but it's already 10PM here and we have to be up again at 6AM. There's no sign of another day off in the next week or so, but our last day of work is going to be May 1st, which is also the day of the end-of-harvest party. After that we have about a week before our flight home to the states, so a trip to Abel Tasman and/or Wellington might be in the works.
Since the last post:
- One of the guys on night crew had his wrist broken by the machine I operate. His jumpsuit got caught on this rolling bar and wound his clothes up until it snapped his wrist. It's easy to forget all the things that can maim or kill you at a winery.
- Had a day off, but it was Easter so everything was closed in town except for McDonald's and the pet store.
- Called home via payphone and got to talk to mom and dad for about 10 whole minutes! I intend to call again, but I can only use the phone two times a day... once in the morning at 6AM New Zealand time, the other at 8:30 at night when I get home (1:30 AM Arizona time). Hang in there, we'll talk soon.
- The owner of the house we are all staying at recently brought in 3 kittens that his mother-in-law found. They are so freaking cute!
- Worked 87.5 hours this past WEEK... already this harvest I've managed to save enough money to pay off my airline tickets and maybe do a small bit of travelling around the country before I go home.
That's about it, folks. Plan on taking my camera to the winery tomorrow, so hopefully I'll maybe... maybe... maybe... upload some pictures sometime before I come home.
Goodnight!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
So... tired.
So we just finished our 9th straight day of 12+hour work (84 hour work week!) and I am absolutely exhausted. Right now I have about 2 hours of free time each day -- and about 30 minutes of that goes towards drinking a celebratory beer after work with the crew. The RDV's are kicking my ass... yes, there are two of them. The big one takes 10-15 bags to "cake up" (each bag ways 55 pounds) and the little one, about 7 -- each bag has to be lifted over my head and into the mixing tubs, so my back is incredibly sore. And all that's not even counting the hoses filled with juice that I have to lug around all over the winery. We're all getting a little tired and sleep-deprived, but the long days seem to be getting easier -- and I feel like I'm getting in shape from all the hard work. So A+, right?
Personally I'm getting a little homesick. And not for Portland. I miss my friends and family... and I'm frequently daydreaming of going home to Arizona once I return to the U.S. I'm really liking not having to live out some terrible desk job and I'd like to give brewing beer a try... I wonder if Four Peaks would take someone with a couple wine harvests under their belt? Even Prescott Brewing Company would be fun for a while. I'd also like to do some electrical work with my dad, and I could at least pick up an extra skill during the tough economic times.
Anywho... we have to wake up in about 6.5 hours for another day of work so I think I'll crash for now. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and well. And that I still plan on calling home once I get a day off to buy some secret calling card one of the French guys told me about... I just don't know yet whether we'll get a day off in the next two weeks.
Goodnight!
Personally I'm getting a little homesick. And not for Portland. I miss my friends and family... and I'm frequently daydreaming of going home to Arizona once I return to the U.S. I'm really liking not having to live out some terrible desk job and I'd like to give brewing beer a try... I wonder if Four Peaks would take someone with a couple wine harvests under their belt? Even Prescott Brewing Company would be fun for a while. I'd also like to do some electrical work with my dad, and I could at least pick up an extra skill during the tough economic times.
Anywho... we have to wake up in about 6.5 hours for another day of work so I think I'll crash for now. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and well. And that I still plan on calling home once I get a day off to buy some secret calling card one of the French guys told me about... I just don't know yet whether we'll get a day off in the next two weeks.
Goodnight!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
And I'm Back!
The power cord for my laptop arrived today! It's nice to have full access to the outside world once again. I swear New Zealand is stuck in a time warp -- our local radio station plays all the "modern" hits like The Offspring, Eagle Eye Cherry, Nickelback, AC/DC, and tons and tons of U2 (every three songs, by my count). TV is even delayed by about a month... the "all new" episode of Lost was on last night, but it was the same episode I watched the week before I left the States.
Harvest is in relatively full swing and we've officially begun working 12-hour shifts at the winery. I am on the day shift (7AM-7:30PM) with Christina (US-Oregon), Heath (US-California), Erik (US-California), Jen (US-California), Lucien (France), Adeline (France), Paolo (Italy), Milly (UK), and Hiro (New Zealand via Japan). The other half of the cellar hands have been split off into the night crew. We only see them for about 30 minutes a day when each crew changes out at the winery... which makes it really awkward considering we all live in the same house together.
Christina and I had the day off on Monday and we decided to rent a car and drive to Nelson. Driving was an event in itself since they drive on the left side of the road in NZ... and since virtually all cars here are manual transmission (something I am clearly not familiar with) Christina agreed to take the wheel. After 90 minutes of idyllic New Zealand scenery (I think they really DO have more sheep than people here) and Christina's deft driving skills (that's right, "idyllic" and "deft" just happened in the same sentence) we arrived safe and sound in Nelson. More than anything it was just nice to get away from Blenheim... Nelson's still a small town, but it has vastly superior shopping, women, restaurants, and aesthetics in general. I was also fairly stunned to see several high-end apartments and condos going up along the beaches... while construction has pretty much stalled in the US, things appear to be quite on the up in tiny Nelson. My camera battery unfortunately died on the trip there, so I don't have much to document it, but next to our bicycle wine tasting adventures the trip to Nelson has been one of the New Zealand highlights so far.
At the winery things are pretty slow for harvest. I can't tell if it's because I'm used to a smaller winery and a smaller crew, where the same number of tasks are divided among fewer workers -- and thus each worker has a larger workload -- or because things are actually really slow and we have a dozen people to do all the work there is. Or maybe it's door #3... that I actually learned a lot at Elk Cove and I'm just taking everything in stride now. I'll go ahead and say it's a combination of all three... but that doesn't change the fact that we've had it relatively easy thus far.
Each person's work seems to be more specialized than what most of us are used to. Some only work the press lines all day... receiving the fruit from gigantic trucks, pressing it in the presses, pumping it from the juice trays into the tanks, and repeating. Some of us spend our whole days cleaning dirty tanks. Since Christina and I have worked with Nadine before, she has been kind enough to have Christina working closely with the lab in the mornings -- since she is considering Fermentation Science for graduate school -- and has entrusted me with the responsibility/neverending frustration that is the RDV. RDV stands for Rotating Drum Vacuum and it more or less takes the shittiest parts of the juice that we store in our tanks -- this brown, murky, mud-like substance we call the "lees" -- and through what I like to think is witch-craft, filters it in to crystal clear juice that we can turn into wine. Basically it's a shitload of work for not a lot of wine, but it's something akin to wine alchemy so I like to think it's slightly awesome even though it's a tremendous pain in the ass.
Other than that, it's not terribly different than making wine in Oregon or California or anywhere else in the world. We still work long hours and go home wet and stinky... some more than others (with a finger pointed straight at myself). And we have maybe two hours to eat dinner and go to sleep when we get home, or else we don't get anywhere near the recommended 8 hours of nightly sleep. Unless you're like me and you stay up till midnight typing blog entries.
So without further adieu I will crash for the night, since I have to be up at 6AM. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming!
Much Love,
Brandon
Harvest is in relatively full swing and we've officially begun working 12-hour shifts at the winery. I am on the day shift (7AM-7:30PM) with Christina (US-Oregon), Heath (US-California), Erik (US-California), Jen (US-California), Lucien (France), Adeline (France), Paolo (Italy), Milly (UK), and Hiro (New Zealand via Japan). The other half of the cellar hands have been split off into the night crew. We only see them for about 30 minutes a day when each crew changes out at the winery... which makes it really awkward considering we all live in the same house together.
Christina and I had the day off on Monday and we decided to rent a car and drive to Nelson. Driving was an event in itself since they drive on the left side of the road in NZ... and since virtually all cars here are manual transmission (something I am clearly not familiar with) Christina agreed to take the wheel. After 90 minutes of idyllic New Zealand scenery (I think they really DO have more sheep than people here) and Christina's deft driving skills (that's right, "idyllic" and "deft" just happened in the same sentence) we arrived safe and sound in Nelson. More than anything it was just nice to get away from Blenheim... Nelson's still a small town, but it has vastly superior shopping, women, restaurants, and aesthetics in general. I was also fairly stunned to see several high-end apartments and condos going up along the beaches... while construction has pretty much stalled in the US, things appear to be quite on the up in tiny Nelson. My camera battery unfortunately died on the trip there, so I don't have much to document it, but next to our bicycle wine tasting adventures the trip to Nelson has been one of the New Zealand highlights so far.
At the winery things are pretty slow for harvest. I can't tell if it's because I'm used to a smaller winery and a smaller crew, where the same number of tasks are divided among fewer workers -- and thus each worker has a larger workload -- or because things are actually really slow and we have a dozen people to do all the work there is. Or maybe it's door #3... that I actually learned a lot at Elk Cove and I'm just taking everything in stride now. I'll go ahead and say it's a combination of all three... but that doesn't change the fact that we've had it relatively easy thus far.
Each person's work seems to be more specialized than what most of us are used to. Some only work the press lines all day... receiving the fruit from gigantic trucks, pressing it in the presses, pumping it from the juice trays into the tanks, and repeating. Some of us spend our whole days cleaning dirty tanks. Since Christina and I have worked with Nadine before, she has been kind enough to have Christina working closely with the lab in the mornings -- since she is considering Fermentation Science for graduate school -- and has entrusted me with the responsibility/neverending frustration that is the RDV. RDV stands for Rotating Drum Vacuum and it more or less takes the shittiest parts of the juice that we store in our tanks -- this brown, murky, mud-like substance we call the "lees" -- and through what I like to think is witch-craft, filters it in to crystal clear juice that we can turn into wine. Basically it's a shitload of work for not a lot of wine, but it's something akin to wine alchemy so I like to think it's slightly awesome even though it's a tremendous pain in the ass.
Other than that, it's not terribly different than making wine in Oregon or California or anywhere else in the world. We still work long hours and go home wet and stinky... some more than others (with a finger pointed straight at myself). And we have maybe two hours to eat dinner and go to sleep when we get home, or else we don't get anywhere near the recommended 8 hours of nightly sleep. Unless you're like me and you stay up till midnight typing blog entries.
So without further adieu I will crash for the night, since I have to be up at 6AM. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming!
Much Love,
Brandon
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