Jul 30
A day in the life of Renee - the novel...
I wake up to the awful polyphonic sounds of my LG flip phone.. after rushing around I am ready in a jiffy. I really try hard to stay quiet for my house mate but I just "canno dooo i' cap'n" ... I jump in my car that smells like pina colada, drives like a sofa strapped to a boat and has no stereo ....
Once I've checked the answer phone at my boss/now my temporary desk "you have No new messages...not even from your mother"... I run through my list of things to do that I've (hopefully) written the day before.
The first hour I spend usually biking around/through the cave on the winery's fixed gear cruiser bike collecting barrel samples to test for SO2 (sulfur dioxide in the wine). Then I spend an hour running the SO2s on a laboratory apparatus which takes 10 minutes per sample. This is usually done to the awful musical beats of the cellar crew which usually consists of Journey, the Eagles, Huey Lewis and some random Mexican music thrown in to the mix. Ok I get it, we should appreciate the oldies so we can appreciate the music we have now. But every day...?
When I have my own winery, music will be mixed and performed to the tasting room by a live DJ with the music amplified all around the complex on amazing speakers and subwoofers... yep..
10 am its break time... I make sure I taste every sample before tipping it out.. So with wine stained teeth I greet the crew for a quick couple of peanut butter smothered bagels. We usually all talk about what fish tastes best and the best way to cook it. Then we might have a quick discussion about the World Cup soccer before the conversation slips into Filipino and I start to day dream about whats for lunch...
I then finish up my laboratory work and get stuck into emailing, calling, organising vineyard visits or fungicide spraying. This is the first year I've been really actively involved with the vineyards and whats happening in each one. So after just a couple of weeks I am becoming really familiar with what is happening in each block, how far behind in growth it all is etc...
Because this area had such a huge amount of rainfall we are quite far behind in growth and vineyard management will be really important, picky and different to the previous years. Which means I have to spend alot of time jumping in the Kawasaki (4WD little cart) and zooming around the estate checking out the growth of the vines and grape flowers/bunches. ((This is very exciting! Except for when it runs out of gas 1 mile away from the winery))
Once the vineyards have been visited I may have some blending to do. The nice white clean laboratory gets a sprinkling of red wine droplets all over the place as the mad scientist in me comes out. "90% of this with 3% of that... and 2% of this...with 5% of that hmmm somethings missing.. how about 95% of this with a pinch of this, a splash of this and a dash of that...oh look out I should be spitting this...luckily I'm not driving today!" whew!
Sometimes the heroine in me shines through... a keg tasting before it is used to top wine is pretty standard issue when it comes to being a winemaker. It would be terrible if one bad keg ruined a whole batch of wine. All those "wine fairies" who sneak around in the dark and drink from the barrels leave these barrels a little empty after a while which means the barrels have to be topped up with some wine...
The other day I was brought a sample from a shady little keg to use for topping.. the wine, it looked clean, smelt ok, but tasted pretty average...i jumped on my bike and waved down my coworker - just in time - to tell him he couldn't use it...whew! sometimes that happens and you just have to sacrifice the odd keg in order to save the rest of the lot in barrels.
After work I jump in my dodge dynasty, beat box my way home where my awesome housemate awaits me with some home grown fresh vege goodness or some sweet food in the fridge or plans for a potluck dinner. Yes it usually involves food or if I'm lucky maybe even a run!
