Last Tuesday was like a tightly-written TV episode (think early Scrubs). It was a symbolic day... a day to reflect on where I had come from and where I was headed. It was the day of my one-year anniversary at Arizona Stronghold and to add weight to the situation, it was also a personally significant day since we were putting the finishing touches on bottling the first red wines I was able to work on from beginning to end. Most importantly it was the day I realized making wine was like making a baby.
The wine industry is unlike most other work in that we more or less operate in one year vacuums. Harvest in the northern hemisphere begins roughly in August, lasts till November when the seasonal help goes home, then there's mostly barrel work for 9 months, some blending, then bottling, and then the new harvest comes the following August and you do it all over again. Until this past year I was mostly just harvest help for a few months before jumping ship to the next place (Oregon to New Zealand to Arizona, for those of you keeping score), which sometimes means that I don't even get to taste the finished product! Some particularly badass vintages are held over for an extra year in-barrel to age before they are realeased to the public. This means I haven't been able to try wines from my first harvest in Oregon in 2008 because they don't even get released until this fall. It's a bit of a mindfuck... since the work I did in Oregon, I've done a harvest in New Zealand, toured that country, moved from Portland to Sedona, worked another harvest plus 9 months, had time to write this blog, all while the wine I initally helped make in Oregon won't even come out for another month or two!
As I mentioned last Tuesday was the end of my first full year at a single winery... and the experience of seeing things go from grape clusters to finished, bottled wines was special. I'm not going to lie, I was silently emotional... I'm not sure if the tears were from realizing this situation, or because I had lost all control of my body after 5 days of physically demanding and equally mind-numbing 12-hour bottling sessions. I think I'll blame the latter. I may have also peed myself, but that's neither here nor there. In all seriousness, I was proud -- not about the crying and the peeing myself -- but proud of all the hard work I had put in... and in knowing that I had my hand in helping produce some pretty kickass AZ wines (and hopefully the first 90-point rated "Arizona" wine ever made). Not that I can even pretend to imagine what it's like to have a child, but after preparing and caring for the wines every day for a year, the whole laboring on the bottling line part is like giving birth to a baby. A baby that I helped make with a small group of other people (told you the wine industry was unlike most other industries). And now that baby is going to be released to the rest of the world... and all of you, too, will be able to taste my baby (which I encourage).
My one-year was also a day to think back on my career in wine and where it might be taking me. I do currently love my job at Stronghold (we're making babies!), but I'm having a difficult time reconciling the sub-par social life in Sedona. It's been a year and I really haven't made any friends outside of work. There is also like zero booty to be gotten there... and mostly just gross white trash booty in Cottonwood and Camp Verde. I'm going to re-evaluate the situation at the end of this year, but I feel myself being called back to Oregon -- even San Luis Obispo/Paso Robles area would be an interesting California challenge. It'd be tough to give up a rare full-time position in an industry I love, but if I'm not living a balanced life then I think I'm at least forced to consider the possibility of living somewhere else.
On the other hand, as much symbolism as August 3rd represented for me... the reward of a year's worth of work, questions about the future, and the reminder of just how alone I am in this tourist-ridden city... there was some silver lining the next day. That day one of our bottling helpers was a cute girl with dark hair and blue eyes (sexy!). And in a few short minutes I discovered she knew about the small town where I lived in New Zealand (exclamation point!). I think I had a little "bottling crush" on her and though I'm not sure I'll ever see her again, it was nice even for just an afternoon to feel something for a change.
P.S. -- my parents occasionally contact a psychic (yes, psychic... I know) and she says I'm supposed to meet someone very soon and have a baby in one year -- and I don't think she means the wine kind. I'm not so thrilled about the real baby part, but I believe that would be what they call coming full circle.
2 comments:
I've been dreaming of tasting your babies for many a year, Brando.
And didn't your family's psychic consultant predict you'd be a father a few years back? Perhaps she was just ahead of the game on this whole wine-baby metaphor.
Nate - The story has always been that I'm supposed to meet a dark-haired woman that is older than me, have a child with her, and then she's supposed to leave me with the baby. Sad, huh?
The trick is knowing your fate, so you know what to avoid. Remember how well that worked out for the kids in those Final Destination movies?
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