The Dallas Mavericks got rid of some ghosts - trouncing the Lakers in L.A. (game 2 of 82)!
Try to follow my line of thought here: I picture an intern's job as it relates to winemaking sort of like an orbit. What I mean is that sometimes you are doing things that need to be done but the process is pretty far removed from the wine or winemaking. Important to the overall process, but still, way out on the fringes. Other times you are much closer to the sun.
I spent the 1st two days of the week pressure-washing those grape bins. They are being stored for some poor harvest intern to dust off and sanitize next year. I consider that like being on Neptune.
The daily morning and evening pump-overs or moving wine/juice from tank to barrels is a bit closer to the actual process. Top-stir-topping barrels at least gets you involved with the actual juice. And I really loved when the grapes were coming in.
Sanitizing the drains or pressure-washing the floor; back out on Pluto. Scrubbing barrel racks falls into that general category too.
This week I fell into both orbits. Usually, in the same day. You're always involved in one of the pump-overs. Spent 2 days top-stir-topping Chardonnay barrels. Lost count around 250. But, I consider that a bonus workout.
We did have another one of those fabulous lunches. Patrice and Paul cooked Italian - Lasagne, caesar salads, seafood! Cameron picked up some wines - mostly from Sicily. Ironically, I had been brushing up on Sicily this week. An article my Mom sent me and The Spectator had a quiz on the wines from this Mediterranean island to the south. Give Nero d'Avola a try.
Today was a short but intense day. We racked the Pedregal and Shartsis Cabs from their tanks to new tanks to remove solids and to aerate them. That's a shot of the setup below. The Shartsis, from the tank on the right, being aerated into that metal bin (called a sump) through hoses to the tank on the left. The next picture is the inside of the original tank on the right. That is the solids on the bottom, (a grape sludge) that are left behind. These 2 Cabs were drained off their skins on Thursday, October 29 (yesterday). So, basically we moved the juice (wine), twice in two days. The 1st time a wine is moved off the skins it is called the free-run. (click some of the links if you like punishment and want to read more on this from previous episodes)
