Day Five - Labor Day at the Vineyard

Music is the wine which inspires one to

new generative processes, and I am Bacchus

who presses out this glorious wine for mankind

and makes them spiritually drunken.
- Ludwig van Beethoven

Yesterday was Labor Day - and labor I did! I was scheduled to be working with one of the part time staff members, but apparently she decided to take the holiday off and called in that morning. As the staff there is minimal at best, that meant I was working with the owners in the tasting room, and they called one of the vineyard field hands in to help package up cases and bags of wine, run the glasses to the washing machine, bus tables, etc.

Of course the first order of the day was heading over to the B&B to help serve breakfast, which started out with a peach and plum yogurt smoothie and freshly made cranberry scones hot from the oven. This was followed by an herbed mushroom, corn and leek risotto, topped with a duck egg (sunny side up) and a slice of home-made maple cured bacon.

An added bonus was that Daniel accidentally broke the yolk on one of the duck eggs, so he made another to serve to the B&B guests, and divided up the broken one among the staff, along with a taste of the risotto and bacon. It was delicious, notwithstanding the distinct feeling that we were peasants being given a crumb from the table of the king.

Once the breakfast dishes were cleared, it was straight on to the tasting room to get things set up for the day. I didn't know whether to expect a huge crowd or crickets and tumbleweed, and as it turns out neither was the case. The flow of customers was a bit less steady than usual - we didn't have any tasting customers until almost noon, but then we got a little "hit" and the room filled up. Then it emptied, and we had about fifteen minutes of quiet.

There was a vineyard walk scheduled for 1:30, and the folks going on the walk all came in a little early to enjoy their four-wine tasting (included in the price of the walk). This is a good thing, because a) they were able to take their last taste with them through the vineyard, sipping as they listened, and b) there was no "rush" of walkers afterward, making it easier to serve the regular customers.

The music played on the sound system in the tasting room is hard to define as a genre, yet it's easily recognizable - a sort of "post-hippie mix". Iris Dement, Emmy Lou Harris, Billy Joel, The Grateful Dead. It's music that I don't exactly hate, but I don't exactly enjoy, either - at least in great quantities.

It's aimed at the middle-aged moneyed crowd who are still trying to recapture those elusive and mostly imaginary days when they were "cool", and it validates the wearing of sandals and shorts and sunglasses. I have to let the musical part of my mind turn off when I'm serving wine and "Casey Jones" starts playing for the fifth time. You know, the one whose lyrics start with "Riding that train, high on cocaine"... yeah, that one.

If it were up to me, the play list would include a mix of classical, ambient new age music, celtic music (both instrumental and pub tunes), and some Sinatra and other '40s music. A lot of our guests are senior citizens, and I think they'd appreciate a little bit of musical class and diversity.

At the end of the day, I got my first official training in the "zeeing out" of the cash register, credit card machine, and closing out the cash drawer. I did it step by step with Brenda alongside giving me directions, but if I told you I remembered any of it right now, I'd be lying. It's one of those things that will come with repetition - at some point I'll be able to do it with my eyes closed, but as I'm not mathematically inclined, dealing with the "house money" makes me nervous!

I'm off today, and so I will get my banking, cleaning, and shopping done. My work schedule is a bit odd this week, my two days off are not back-to-back, because I'm just getting worked into their already set-up calendar. I am scheduled to work tomorrow and then be off on Thursday, and then on Friday I don't go in until late afternoon, as we have a wedding party at the B&B for the weekend, and I will be serving at the rehearsal dinner Friday evening.


This will be an interesting weekend! I'm looking forward to it.