GARAGE VINO

Since I hadn’t learned how to upload photos to the garagevino blog until now, I present, for your viewing pleasure, or comedy — or tragedy — a brief photo essay of my first week on the job as Craig Jaffurs’ 2007 harvest intern. You might want to refer back to last week’s entry, where the written account of said first week corresponds loosely to the visuals I’m posting today.

Without further ado:

A JOB WELL RESEARCHED

On my way out the door, I present hard evidence of the thorough research I performed prior to showing up for my first day of work on Montecito Street (in case your browser doesn’t give you a crystal-clear image, that bottle is empty, folks).

GRAPES AND A FORKLIFT

The job I’m about to do is all in preparation for this — the arrival of the grapes. Approximately seven tons of fruit greeted us on my first day, some of it Syrah (Jaffurs’ renowned specialty), some of it Grenache (another notable varietal on the Jaffurs label).

THE INFERNAL MACHINE

The half-ton bins will be dumped into the hopper, which funnels them down into the beast: the crusher-destemmer. Fruit comes out below, and stems, to the right. Except there’s a catch — actually two of them. First…

THE HOSEDOWN

Before a single grape can be dumped into the hopper, everything must be cleaned. This means hosing down the pad, hosing off the bins, sterilizing the bins, hosing them off, sterilizing the tools, hosing them off, and so on. This, of course, is a duty assigned, preferably, to the lowest man on the totem pole, i.e. the harvest intern (moi). And then there’s the second catch…

THAT WHOLE DESTEMMING THING…

…well, it seems not every stem is snagged by the destemmer. So part of what winemakers who really care about their final product require is for their winemaking staff, and (mostly) the harvest grunts like me, to dive for those wayward stems.

STICKY

It can get pretty messy…

THE GRAPE-JUICE SHOWER

…and sometimes you need to get your ass all the way in there to reach the cascading dispersal of wayward stems. All but your ass, anyway. (Get it? That’s the sort of pun my father taught me at the dinner table as a child, so it kind of flows naturally from the keyboard, know what I mean?) And yes, that well-fed waistline and its trunk are mine.

IT’S ALL WORTH IT…

…since these grape clusters, by way of the toiling crew’s labors, wind up…

FERMENTING

…in these bins, after which they are transferred to the barrels and, after appropriate aging, into the bottles with that Jaffurs label plastered on their curved sides.

THE JAFFURS TEAM

Here they are — the Jaffurs Wine Cellars team, from left to right Craig Jaffurs, Matt Brady, and Dave Yates. And despite this photojournalist’s out-of-focus camerawork, it seems that the Jaffurs team was kind enough on that first day to reward…

THE TIRED HARVEST INTERN…

…with a full bottle to replace all that well-researched preparation I did before arriving to work the hoses on the pad!

I can’t thank Craig, Dave, nor Matt enough for the opportunity they were willing to offer an aspiring but fairly un-knowledgable intern-slash-winemaker such as myself. It’s a nice thing for a rookie to find a home beneath the wings of such guys, fine winemakers and people both, as I embark on the path to my own family vino business.

Stay tuned — as promised, the tale of the harvest, crush, inoculation and pressing of my first (non-commercial) GARAGE VINO, a Paso Robles Zinfandel, will be up next.