So I believe someone above is laughing at us. To add insult to injury of going to work at 7pm and ending at 7:30am, the powers that be decided to bring on torrential downpours for 90% of our evening shift, including the bike to work. Now, normally, this would/could be expected, except this is Blenheim. It hasn't rained one drop since we got here a month ago. The sun has been out all but two cloudy days. Needless to day the rain made work very damp and cold, especially for those who had to work prolonged stints outside.
Now that the rain has stopped, it's cold and windy. I guess fall has finally arrived.
Funny thing about adjusting to night shift. Usually when you stay out all night or don't sleep on a normal schedule, it's because there's alcohol involved and waking up the next morning involves a hangover of some sorts. However, waking up at 2:30 pm today feels slightly less miserable. I opened one eye, saw it was light out and braced myself for the standard feeling of dry mouth, headache, nausea associated with being over served. Delightfully surprised that none of those symptoms became apparent, I was caught off guard when the dead weight of being up all night hit me like a sack of potatoes. I certainly hope it's like skiing, where if you can pull through the third day, you can rally on the fourth.
~S
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Let the Savalanche Begin!
The onslaught (Savalanche) of grapes has begun. This week we've worked one 12 hr shift already and are gradually moving towards "the night shift." Tomorrow we work from 12 noon to midnight. I have 3 filtering jobs lined up (more diatomaceous earth) for tomorrow and Jesse's scheduled to receive 350 tonnes of grapes.
If you're curious, we've picked mainly Sauvignon Blanc and a little Chardonnay. The Pinots (Gris and Noir) are still hanging out on the vines, increasing in Brix.
Oh, so we learned that next Monday, they're going to feed us "lunch" once a day, for free. This probably works out for our 1 am meal, but I'm always pumped over free food!
Cheers,
~S
If you're curious, we've picked mainly Sauvignon Blanc and a little Chardonnay. The Pinots (Gris and Noir) are still hanging out on the vines, increasing in Brix.
Oh, so we learned that next Monday, they're going to feed us "lunch" once a day, for free. This probably works out for our 1 am meal, but I'm always pumped over free food!
Cheers,
~S
Friday, March 21, 2008
White Wine Survey Results
Winning the previous survey was Sauvignon Blanc with 41% of the votes. Readers are possibly attracted to the dryer more herbaceous flavor with hints citrus and flint.
Next off was Pinot Grigio with 25% of the votes. Obviously readers haven't had an experience of being overserved Pinot Grigio like I have. Since having too much of one of those LARGE bottle of Luna de Luna, I haven't touched the stuff.
Chardonnay took home 16% of the votes. Personally, I think oak and wine should be limited to red wines, however, I can see how the creamy smooth Chardonnay flavors can be attractive.
The last two wines, Riesling and Boone's Farm took home 8% of the vote each. Throughout our trip, I have had a few Rieslings that were pretty decent. Both were better than a bottle of Boone's Farm, but I think it's safe to say that our readers prefer non-sweet white wines better than the sweeter varietals.
Thanks for voting, next week please vote for your favorite red!
Cheers,
~S
Next off was Pinot Grigio with 25% of the votes. Obviously readers haven't had an experience of being overserved Pinot Grigio like I have. Since having too much of one of those LARGE bottle of Luna de Luna, I haven't touched the stuff.
Chardonnay took home 16% of the votes. Personally, I think oak and wine should be limited to red wines, however, I can see how the creamy smooth Chardonnay flavors can be attractive.
The last two wines, Riesling and Boone's Farm took home 8% of the vote each. Throughout our trip, I have had a few Rieslings that were pretty decent. Both were better than a bottle of Boone's Farm, but I think it's safe to say that our readers prefer non-sweet white wines better than the sweeter varietals.
Thanks for voting, next week please vote for your favorite red!
Cheers,
~S
Two weeks down, still no grapes
This week consisted of more learning, cleaning tanks, and getting the winery ready to receive grapes. Yet we still haven't seen any grapes yet. Rumor has it that next Tuesday (after the Easter holiday) we'll get our first 150 tons of grapes.
To reinforce the sheer volume of grapes that we'll be receiving, Nobilo loaded us on a tour bus and took us to see the different vineyards around the area. Around the Marlborough region almost every available square meter (we roll in the metric system here) is covered in Sauvignon Blanc. See the pictures on our website to get an idea of the hectares and hectares of grapes planted around here. I'd say that probably 95% of what's planted around here is Sauvignon Blanc, with the remaining 5% consisting of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio for ya'll who are familiar with this Italian varietal), Pinot Noir, Semillion and Riesling.
To reinforce the sheer volume of grapes that we'll be receiving, Nobilo loaded us on a tour bus and took us to see the different vineyards around the area. Around the Marlborough region almost every available square meter (we roll in the metric system here) is covered in Sauvignon Blanc. See the pictures on our website to get an idea of the hectares and hectares of grapes planted around here. I'd say that probably 95% of what's planted around here is Sauvignon Blanc, with the remaining 5% consisting of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio for ya'll who are familiar with this Italian varietal), Pinot Noir, Semillion and Riesling.
Friday, March 14, 2008
One week down, no grapes yet.
We made it one week at Nobilo winery as cellar hands. This week we experienced all the "haphazardness" of any first week of work. No one knows what to do, everyone's giving 100% to try to not let anyone else down, and mistakes/accidents are plentiful. Both Jesse and I have avoided any major disasters, however some other coworkers haven't been so lucky. We've had a fellow coworker fall down a set of stairs and burn his foot with some caustic soda. Yikes!
At the end of the week, we celebrated a successful completion by sitting around drinking beers. Yes, I said beers. It's kind of ironic that a bunch of cellar hands and wine makers sit around drinking beers, isn't it? But I kind of understand this, after being around wine 24/7 (smelling, tasting, moving, spilling), the last thing you want to drink is wine when you're "relaxing".
So anyways, what did we learn this week?
First off, we learned how to make hoses. On and off this week, both Jesse and I cut large 3" diameter hoses to different lengths and put ends onto them. All in all, I think we made 10 hoses. When you put the ends onto the hose, you must use two hose clamps to secure the end. The tools required to do this job are both antiquated and terribly hard to handle, making the task much harder than it should be.
Next we learned how to pump out and clean a tank. Using a centrifugal pump which is difficult to prime, you can pump the wine from one tank (anywhere from 50,000L to 250,000L) to another. After removing the wine from a tank, it must be cleaned, expecially if the wine's been sitting in there for some time. To do this, you must rinse the tank with caustic soda, water, citric acid (to neutralize the caustic) and then water again. That's at least 4 rinses per tank. If the tank is extra dirty, the small mixing fans in the tank must also be cleaned. That's 4 more rinses per tank. All in all quite time consuming.
Since my specialty this vintage will be filtering wine, I did some work with different types of filters. Two of the filters use something called Diotomatious Earth (DE) which coats metal plates. Wine is drawn through these plates and the particulates in it stick to the DE. Dirty wine goes in, clean wine goes out. My favorite part of filtering is something called "tasting off". When you finish filtering a batch of wine, you have to then flush the machine with water. However, due to the length of hoses and pipes, you have quite a bit of wine left in the system. To loose this wine would be quite unprofitable, so you try to pump as much as possible into the tank, before it gets too watery. To do this, you must taste the wine that's going into the tank (with the help of a T-valve) and "determine" when it's too watery. When it gets too watery, you open the T-valve (closing off the receival tank) and let the water work it's way throughout the filter and hoses. Then you being to clean out the filter using the 4 step rinses described above. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, each filter machine has between 5 and 50,000 knobs, gauges and dials that must be turned in a specific order to ensure proper filtration. Turn the wrong one and you're liable to spray wine on your foot or worse.
One of the other filter that I have to run uses a centrifuge to spin wine at 6000 rpm. When the wine is spun up it gets dizzy and the particulates fall out (not quite). But particulates are trapped in a mesh and the wine goes through. When the particulate trap is full, the machine "ejects" the particulates with such a loud bang, it sounds like a howitzer is going off. The machine is actually reinforced in the area where the particulates are ejected from the centrifuge because of the force with which the particulates are ejected. I've taken to yelling "fire in the hole" to warn passer by's of the impending boom.
Next week, we'll get another 12 new employees with 6 coming to night shift with us. Rumor has it that the grapes are coming late next week, but again, that's just a rumor. Until then, we'll enjoy our 8 hour days and weekends off. Next weekend is Easter, so we'll have 4 days off (maybe).
Cheers,
~S
At the end of the week, we celebrated a successful completion by sitting around drinking beers. Yes, I said beers. It's kind of ironic that a bunch of cellar hands and wine makers sit around drinking beers, isn't it? But I kind of understand this, after being around wine 24/7 (smelling, tasting, moving, spilling), the last thing you want to drink is wine when you're "relaxing".
So anyways, what did we learn this week?
First off, we learned how to make hoses. On and off this week, both Jesse and I cut large 3" diameter hoses to different lengths and put ends onto them. All in all, I think we made 10 hoses. When you put the ends onto the hose, you must use two hose clamps to secure the end. The tools required to do this job are both antiquated and terribly hard to handle, making the task much harder than it should be.
Next we learned how to pump out and clean a tank. Using a centrifugal pump which is difficult to prime, you can pump the wine from one tank (anywhere from 50,000L to 250,000L) to another. After removing the wine from a tank, it must be cleaned, expecially if the wine's been sitting in there for some time. To do this, you must rinse the tank with caustic soda, water, citric acid (to neutralize the caustic) and then water again. That's at least 4 rinses per tank. If the tank is extra dirty, the small mixing fans in the tank must also be cleaned. That's 4 more rinses per tank. All in all quite time consuming.
Since my specialty this vintage will be filtering wine, I did some work with different types of filters. Two of the filters use something called Diotomatious Earth (DE) which coats metal plates. Wine is drawn through these plates and the particulates in it stick to the DE. Dirty wine goes in, clean wine goes out. My favorite part of filtering is something called "tasting off". When you finish filtering a batch of wine, you have to then flush the machine with water. However, due to the length of hoses and pipes, you have quite a bit of wine left in the system. To loose this wine would be quite unprofitable, so you try to pump as much as possible into the tank, before it gets too watery. To do this, you must taste the wine that's going into the tank (with the help of a T-valve) and "determine" when it's too watery. When it gets too watery, you open the T-valve (closing off the receival tank) and let the water work it's way throughout the filter and hoses. Then you being to clean out the filter using the 4 step rinses described above. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, each filter machine has between 5 and 50,000 knobs, gauges and dials that must be turned in a specific order to ensure proper filtration. Turn the wrong one and you're liable to spray wine on your foot or worse.
One of the other filter that I have to run uses a centrifuge to spin wine at 6000 rpm. When the wine is spun up it gets dizzy and the particulates fall out (not quite). But particulates are trapped in a mesh and the wine goes through. When the particulate trap is full, the machine "ejects" the particulates with such a loud bang, it sounds like a howitzer is going off. The machine is actually reinforced in the area where the particulates are ejected from the centrifuge because of the force with which the particulates are ejected. I've taken to yelling "fire in the hole" to warn passer by's of the impending boom.
Next week, we'll get another 12 new employees with 6 coming to night shift with us. Rumor has it that the grapes are coming late next week, but again, that's just a rumor. Until then, we'll enjoy our 8 hour days and weekends off. Next weekend is Easter, so we'll have 4 days off (maybe).
Cheers,
~S
Monday, March 10, 2008
First Day of Work - Reporting In
So the first day as a cellar hand was slightly less awkward (only slightly) than working at Snowgum. At least there were no "customers" to have to convince you weren't completely stupid.
We biked to work this morning, arriving at 8am. After introducing ourselves about 100 times, we filled out some paperwork and met the permanent staff that we'd be working with. The team at Nobilo seems to be glad that the extra help as arrived, yet things are still quiet.
After this, we learned some of the jobs we'd be doing such as: making new hoses, cleaning tanks, moving stuff around... yeah, so that's pretty much all we did. A lot of first day awkwardness and standing around. That's universal to any first day; you want to be helpful and good at any job they give you, yet you're nervous and look like a complete monkey with anything you do.
We also learned we'd be working the night shift, 7pm to 7am. Other than the obvious downside - having to sleep while the sun is up - Jesse and I see some potential positives to the night shift.
1) When we bike to work, it's guaranteed to be light out. Our boss promised some spectacular sunrises as well. The headwinds are supposed to be the least at this point.
2) No sunburn. My forehead and bald spot thanks me immensely for this.
3) If we have errands to take care of in town, we'll be off during normal business hours.
4) The personalities of those who supervise the night shift seem to be of the "relaxed" nature. Should be interesting.
Cheers,
~S
We biked to work this morning, arriving at 8am. After introducing ourselves about 100 times, we filled out some paperwork and met the permanent staff that we'd be working with. The team at Nobilo seems to be glad that the extra help as arrived, yet things are still quiet.
After this, we learned some of the jobs we'd be doing such as: making new hoses, cleaning tanks, moving stuff around... yeah, so that's pretty much all we did. A lot of first day awkwardness and standing around. That's universal to any first day; you want to be helpful and good at any job they give you, yet you're nervous and look like a complete monkey with anything you do.
We also learned we'd be working the night shift, 7pm to 7am. Other than the obvious downside - having to sleep while the sun is up - Jesse and I see some potential positives to the night shift.
1) When we bike to work, it's guaranteed to be light out. Our boss promised some spectacular sunrises as well. The headwinds are supposed to be the least at this point.
2) No sunburn. My forehead and bald spot thanks me immensely for this.
3) If we have errands to take care of in town, we'll be off during normal business hours.
4) The personalities of those who supervise the night shift seem to be of the "relaxed" nature. Should be interesting.
Cheers,
~S
So Fresh and So Green!
It hit me this morning on my way to work that we might qualify as a green household.
The 3 of us biked to work today. No vehicles were used.
We walked to the grocery store.
We're eating veggies that were grown in the garden.
I have to watch out that the cloud of smug doesn't get too big over this house.
Off to smell my own farts...
~S
Saturday, March 8, 2008
A ton of new pictures posted.
Although we weren't the most diligent with our blog in the past couple weeks, never fear, faithful readers. We had our trusty camera by our side. Check out our photo site here and view our new photos.
Cheers,
GC
Cheers,
GC
Ok Folks, We're Back In Business
Hi readers -
Yes, we're still alive, and doing quite well actually. Since we last updated you, we're now living in Blenheim, New Zealand. That's a small city at the northern tip of the south island and home to some of the world's best Sauvignon Blanc.
For those of you interested, you can view our new address on Google Maps by clicking here. Our new place is a FURNISHED house (ooh, pots, pans, and a mattress with springs) owned by a school teacher in Blenheim. We're renting a room from him.
On Monday, we'll be starting work at Nobilo's Drylands Winery as cellar hands. So sorry, but we can't provide any more details just yet because we have no clue at to what cellar hands do. All we do know is this:
-We're to report to the winery at 8am sharp.
-We're to wear clothing and shoes that can get wet and dirty.
-We need our paperwork to show that we can legally work and get paid in New Zealand.
-We'll be sized for protective clothing and boots.
The weather here in Blenheim is absolutely gorgeous, with cool breezes and hot sun almost every day. The city is located between two mountain ranges that help channel warm sea breezes off the South Pacific across the plains. It's conducive to growing absolutely everything - apples, cherries, citrus, olives, and of course grapes.
More reports on work to follow.
Cheers,
Steebe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)