Paradise Enough

Parting Shots

2008-11-07T07:12:00.001-08:00

A '37 Packard

The hood ornament reminds me of a
Quidditch player catching the golden snitch.

Color: "Casino Red"

Note the analog clock in the dashboard - way cool!

Now THEM'S running boards!

What cat through yonder window sneaks?

'Tis I, Cat Skywalker!

Mere mortal, you can never hope to attain
the heights to which I have risen.

Nor will you ever be able to camouflage yourself
with such skill...

... or cuteness!

Paradise Lost

2008-11-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

Sunflower skeletons being scavenged by blackbirds

As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end". As fate would have it, my securing a better job has coincided with the end of the "goodness" of working at the vineyard.

Without going down too much of a long and whining road, I have discovered that the vineyard owners' definition of their request that I "be flexible" translates to "never plan anything on your own time in case we need you to do something at the vineyard."

I was subjected to a hostile and very unprofessional session of berating and nastiness when I informed them that I would be unable to work a nighttime event due to having tickets to a show (which, incidentally, I had purchased over a year ago, and which will be my only outing with my husband this year). This verbal flagellation occurred in the presence of another employee, who tried her best but failed to vanish into a crack in the floor from sheer embarrassment.

In addition to this, I found an email (on our company email list, which my job requires me to utilize and read) from the boss to a former employee, informing her that my schedule would be switched around to accommodate her wish to come back and work for a few days. None of this had been discussed with me, and when the boss came to me at the end of a workday to inform me of a schedule change less than twelve hours in advance, I was, as you may imagine, less than inclined to "be flexible".

Alfred Hitchcock would have loved this place...

It really is a shame, because the vineyard is so lovely and it could be such a great place to work - if the owners would just treat people like... well, people.

Not to leave you on a sour note, here are some neat photos I took in and around the vineyard recently...

MORE HAUNTED HOUSES!

For some reason it's not so much the house itself
as the contents of the front porch that make
this one seem so haunted...

This house is yet another one which features an
uber-creepy upper window...

And, if you look really closely...

You might just see a HAINT!

The quality of light around this old place
really made it eerie. I took these just as the
sun was going down.

I took them rather quickly. I was - uh -
hungry, and wanted to get home to dinner.
Yeah, that's it.

This one is my favorite of all...

I drove past it quite a few times working up
the courage to get close enough to take
some really good shots.

Don't even try to tell me you don't
know there's something living under there
in that big black hole at the base of
the bay windows...

And what do you think shredded the curtains into
ribbons?

These are things I thought while I ran back to my truck.

It was a dark and stormy day...

2008-10-20T04:44:00.001-07:00

Unlike the weekends, which are non-stop action and crowds of people wave upon wave, the weekdays at the vineyard are rather peaceful and even a little lonely. As autumn moves on into winter, they will become even moreso.

Last week, we had a dreary, cloud-filled day that prompted me to take some pictures. I find that gloomy weather puts more feeling into photographs, gives them that little "Sleepy Hollow" sentiment. It can turn a picture of an old rocking chair into a ghost story.

Up in the loft, I had a little impromptu photo shoot. I hadn't realized the views from up there were so interesting before, perhaps because the brilliant sunshine made it hard to see out the windows.

This building was originally constructed in the 1880's and has been refurbished in the original style. Note the mortise and tenon construction - using tension to hold the puzzle pieces together, rather than nails and screws.

An aerial view of a tasting room table.

View of the front table from the loft.

A few more lofty pictures...

The path leading from the tasting room to the
main house, past the last of the roses in bloom

Someone, possibly the kids of the original owners, carved a picture of a house and a tree, and the words "A Farm House" into the door leading from the fermenting barn into the tasting room.

The first member of my fan club.

Outside the fermenting barn, just to one side of the parking lot, stands an old tool shed which is so picturesque I just couldn't help myself. I opened the door and took the following shot through the window, which gives me the strange feeling of looking out at the modern world from the past.

What is it about barrels that make them so photogenic, I wonder? Is it the beauty of things that are still hand crafted by artisans? Is it the perfect shape, the geometric lines of wood grain, or the steely strength of metal bands holding things together? Or the thought of the wine that has slept inside, dreaming of the bottles to come?

The vineyard also has a garden, and these are the end of season beauties I found there. Golden cherry tomatoes and brightly colored lettuces.

The vines are shedding their leaves fast now, even though all of the fruit has not been harvested yet. The Sauvignon Blanc was harvested two weeks ago, and we are now in the midst of our Merlot harvest. Next come the Petit Verdot and Malbec grapes, and the last to be harvested will be the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Some flowers that neighbors brought in mourning for the passing of the first vineyard dog. I added the bits of lavender for scent. Eventually the whole thing became a fruit fly nest, so it was moved outside onto the deck where it could be beautiful but pest-less.

Some succulents that must soon be brought inside or
lost to the frost.

The view down the ladder from the loft. I climb this ladder many
times a day, as we keep all our office supplies, paper towels for the
bathroom, flyers, pamphlets, and magazines up there.

Early one morning when we had no B&B guests to serve breakfast to, I was invited out to help harvest some grapes. I walked out to the middle of the vineyard, and found the pickers by sighting the farm truck piled high with yellow "lugs", those plastic bins used to carry grapes. I grabbed a pair of clippers and searched around until I found Brenda, who was down on her knees harvesting grapes alongside the field workers, most of whom are from Ecuador.

She showed me how to clip the grapes from the vine, and what to look for. Surprisingly, the grapes at harvest are not the round, shiny, beautiful grapes usually depicted in artwork or photography. Grapes properly ripened for wine are rather ugly. They must be left on the vine until they begin to "raisin", or shrivel up a bit, which concentrates the sugars and intensifies the flavors.

A local farmer lady stopped by the vineyard the other day to drop off some brand new bat houses, which are still leaning in the corner of the tasting room waiting to be put up. With harvest still in full swing, I think it may be a while yet before they are up on poles. The above photo is of one of the pre-existing bat houses on the property. Bats are one of the best methods of organic pest control in the world. They eat millions of insects that might otherwise be feasting on our grapes, and keep down the mosquito population so that visitors don't get eaten alive while trying to enjoy the great outdoors.

The grapes ready to harvest are a bit dusty and wrinkly looking, as I mentioned, and before pitching a bunch into the bin, any grapes with "betritis" (a green mold) must be removed. Moldy grapes occur naturally, as Long Island tends to have heavy morning dews. If a bunch of grapes has one or two offenders, a flick of the hand clippers can remove them, but if there are quite a few bad ones a good hard shake will send them flying, while the healthy grapes remain attached to their stems.

There's a new girl in town

2008-10-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

She's very small and very soft, and she's only been in the world for twelve short weeks. She's friendly and smart, and fits right in at the vineyard like she's been there all along.

She also has one ear that sits up, and one that flops down. How cute is THAT, I ask you?

Meanwhile, back at the vineyard...

2008-10-13T06:56:00.001-07:00

Some of the incredibly cool things about an old farmstead are the small details that lurk in the corners. Pictured above, the initials of the original owner of the farm, which he nailed into a beam with what looks like furniture tacks.

To try and describe to you how busy this weekend was would be nearly impossible, so instead I will tell you that with only myself and two other people working the tasting room, we sold SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS' worth of wine on Saturday.

On days like that, I don't remember any details - it's all a blur of dirty glasses, clean glasses, greeting, describing wines, pouring, pouring, pouring, opening bottles, putting empties aside, boxing and bagging, ringing up sales, and back to the beginning again. On days like that, the customers all start to look identical to me, and I have flashbacks and think that I've already described the wines to them, even though I know they just sat down and their glasses are still clean.

Happily, the owners were in laid-back mode and did not hawk us, so things went pretty smoothly. The winemaker's dog is now wearing a Halti, which is really intended for training a dog not to pull when you take them for a walk, but which doubles as a muzzle in a pinch. So no patrons were nipped, mauled, or had their clothes ripped. All in all, it was a pretty successful weekend.

I nearly dropped my teeth when Brenda said they had decided to open the tasting room today, Columbus Day, (my first day off after five working days) for two hours, and asked me if I could come in! Let's see... drive one hour to work two hours to drive another hour home?

I think not.

Besides, since my regular work days take up ten hours or more, the only time I have to do anything at all at my own house is on my "days off"!!!

I am going to interview with the other job tomorrow morning. We'll see what comes of it. My face may look haggard and I might be limping, but hell - my new haircut is smokin'.

One for Janan!

2008-10-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

"I've fallen, and I can't get up!"

Yesterday I got to the vineyard at 9AM, having stopped on the way in at a local pastry shop to pick up our order of baguettes for the wedding rehearsal dinner that the vineyard owners were hosting for a friend.

Worked breakfast from 9 until 10, then worked the tasting room from 10 until 6, then went up to the main house and worked the rehearsal dinner until 10:30PM. At which point I started my hour-long drive home.

And now, here it is, nearly 8AM again, and I'm going back in for a full day on my feet. My feet are lodging complaints already, and I haven't even put my shoes on. As today is Saturday, AND a holiday weekend, I have a feeling it's going to be a madhouse at the tasting room today.

Give me strength.

Goodbye to our girl - R.I.P.

2008-10-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Daniel took her to the vet this morning to have her put down - it was time. The rest of us wept and tried to keep it from the customers. She will be missed.

They've already picked out a new border collie pup from the same breeding farm, and I think she will be arriving in a week or so. I think Brenda feels it's too soon, but I agree with Daniel, who said today that "this farm needs that kind of love." It's not about replacing, because no one can replace a friend, but it's about continuing with life, and having a puppy to care for and love will ease our hearts while we mourn and make the transition a better one.

I had a rollicking headache all day today, feel as though I may be coming down with something. The barometric pressure is probably screwy due to the rainstorms passing through the area, and that always gives me headaches too.

For the most part, I'm just glad this day is over.

For Angela, Monte, and Ronda

2008-10-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

My mom told me that a few of the women she works with have checked out this blog and were especially digging the pictures of Billy Zane that I posted previously. Well, here's looking at you, kids! In case you care, I've screen-captured these pictures off a DVD called "Invincible", which came out in 2001.

Now that I have landed this great vineyard job, and started keeping this journal, do you think the universe has decided to stop messing around with my HEAD?

Why, no, of course not. Now that I am all excited about selling wine, I have received a call back from one of the jobs I applied for a very long time ago. A job which is much, much closer to where I live, which pays a bit more than I'd be making here at the vineyard, which has more job security, and offers better health coverage. Assuming that I actually get offered this other position, making this decision will be like dancing the tango with a two-edged sword.

The vineyard job is emotionally satisfying but not very mentally challenging. The second job is very mentally challenging and involves the security of aircraft over the North Atlantic Ocean. Yeah - see what I mean? Hmmmmmmmmm....................

My artistic soul loves the beauty of the countryside and the freedom of wine country, but my brain craves the learning of new codes, tactics, and skills. My self-worth craves the doing of a job that really makes a difference in the lives of other people. When I think of the timing of all of this, I just have to smile.

The vineyard job could disappear in a cloud of vapor if the owners decide to get divorced or die an untimely death. But the atmosphere there is very nourishing to me. The second job is only fifteen minutes from my house, and I would be able to have occasional weekends off - which I will not have with the vineyard job. There are so many pros and cons to think about, and none of them is all-encompassing or makes this an easy choice.

I have to center myself, get my mojo in balance, put my karma in gear, and decide what the heck I really want to do with my life.

This is serious.

There is no such thing as too much ~~booty~~ beauty.

October - My favorite month!

2008-10-05T07:50:00.001-07:00

My mom recently sent me this beautiful little plaque, no doubt because she knows that Autumn is my favorite season, and October my favorite month of all. Being at the vineyard during this season is proving to be as wonderful as I had imagined. Aside from the hustle and bustle of harvest, there are all the subtle changes in nature that are sometimes missed in overly developed areas, but which are accentuated to the very nuance out in the vineyard.

The wind has started kicking up, blowing through the tasting room windows and taking leaves off the trees outside. The winds of October always ignite a wild joy in my heart, and make sweeping the tasting room deck not only challenging, but completely pointless. Because I love getting out in the weather, I do it anyway. Besides, there is something cleansing about sweeping, as one can mentally sweep the cobwebs and problems out of one's mind as the leaves are swept away. And it's always good to keep a broom handy - in case my truck won't start, I can still get home.

On Thursday, the wind was so strong that it tore our nylon "OPEN" flag in half. The boss sent me out to buy a new one on Friday, with vague instructions on how to get to the store. Which wasn't actually a store, but rather someone's house, located on the south side of one of the main roads. Which actually wasn't on the south side, but the north side, and which I couldn't see at all driving in the direction I was going because of a huge stand of pine trees that comes all the way to the edge of the road.

And so, taking advantage of the fact that I had already driven well past the place where this flag shop/not shop was supposed to be, I just happened to pull in and turn around in the driveway of this wonderful haunted house.

Which isn't actually a house, but an old school. There is a sign out front which begs "Help save this school so we don't have to tear it down!" So I did my part - I took pictures. Now, even if they do tear the old place down, future generations can still enjoy the creepiness.

The upper part of the building really caught my attention, as there were shreds of torn curtains billowing out of the glassless windows. In one of the closeup photos I took, I captured the face of a haint looking out! If you half close your eyes, you may be able to see it, too.

Not quite having the cojones to walk around behind the school all on my lonesome, fearing bloodthirsty squatters or toothless pesos with trouble on their minds, I got in my truck and drove it around behind the old place, as I had a feeling it would be just as gruesome looking as the front. I was not disappointed!

If I told you that I drove out of there as slowly as I drove in, I'd be a big fat liar.

Champagne vs. Wine

2008-10-01T18:18:00.001-07:00

Today, one of my customers asked me the difference between champagne and white wine. The obvious answer, from a consumer's point of view, is the bubbles. But she was asking me from the winemaker's viewpoint, and I had to tell her that I knew that the winemaking process was different, I knew that the process of making champagne is called "champenoise", pronounced SHAM-pen-WAH (when it is done outside of the Champagne region of France), but I also had to admit that I had no idea what the process actually was.

As harvest time is in full swing, and one of our chillers was on the fritz yesterday (a brand new machine costing in excess of ten thousand dollars), our winemaker has been a bit busy lately, to say the least. But I caught him in between chores, and I asked him the same question my customer had asked me.

In a nutshell, here it is:

White Wine - Grapes are picked when ripe, pressed, and the juice is fermented and bottled.

Champagne - Grapes are picked much earlier than for regular wine, pressed, the juice is fermented and then bottled in super-strong pressure-proof champagne bottles. A secondary fermentation, using yeast and sugar, is then instigated inside each separate bottle. Caps similar to beer bottle caps are put on, which trap the expanding gases and cause carbonation. A settling and cooling process is used to remove the sediment from the second batch of yeast, and the bottles are quickly re-closed with champagne corks to retain the carbonation.

So you see, when you look at the prices of real champagne, you're paying for all that extra work that went into the making. It's more than just pumping some air into a bottle of white wine (which is what you're getting when you buy a $9.99 bottle at Jiffy Wines).

Gone to the big vineyard in the sky...

2008-09-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

Our hats are off to you, Paul Newman.

1925 - 2008

Happy Anniversary to US! (A vintage moment)

2008-09-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

September 28, 2002

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- William Shakespeare
Sonnet CXVI

This is the mead that we home brewed for our wedding. It's particularly relevant just now, as some close friends of my employers asked for a bottle of it to use at their Rosh Hashanah celebration dinner. Not being of Jewish background, I was unaware that honey plays a central role in the celebration of these high holy days, although I am not at all surprised. Honey has been central to so many cultures, because of its medicinal and otherwise exceedingly pleasant qualities. It ties us to the earth, the cycle of life, and brings us joy in all its many forms... not the least of which is MEAD!

Harvest time photos!

2008-09-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature

if it be well used; exclaim no more against it.
William Shakespeare - Othello

I was, happily, able to get some really good photos of some of the harvest activities - and without further bordeaux, here they are!

Because the actual harvesting happens by hand, way out in the vineyard, and I have to stay close to the tasting room in order to help customers and get projects done, I was not able to get pictures of the grapes actually being cut from the vines. My pictures start from the moment the grapes arrive at the fermenting barn.

The farm truck brings the bins full of grapes
from the field to the fermenting barn

Sauvignon blanc grapes - the first to
be harvested each season!

The forklift takes the pallet of bins off the truck...

... and carries them over to the de-stemming machine.
(It's the one with the wheels on it just behind the
wooden pallets in this shot.)

The bins are then unloaded from the forklift...

...and the grapes are dumped in
through the top of the chute.

The fruit travels down the conveyor belt,

and ends up piled in a huge stainless steel vat,
waiting below.

The grapes, still sun-warmed from the fields,
begin to foam up.

On the other side of the machine, the stems shoot
out and form a large messy pile...

...which is then scooped into a waiting plastic bin.

Some grapes escape the machine in the
process, but it leaves the swarms of
yellow jackets something to eat!

The de-stemmed grapes are then loaded into
the press, and the juice is immediately
poured into a bucket, and then pumped via
hose...

...into the large stainless steel vats
in which the wine will ferment.

The grape skins and the stems are ground up
and used as compost for the vines.

A tradition I was pleasantly surprised by
is the "harvest luncheon", which is cooked by
Daniel and enjoyed by all the field hands and
employees!

Pasta with meat sauce and fresh basil,
hand-grated cheese and toasted garlic bread - YUM!

After lunch, it's back to work again.
This time, it's a load of pinot noir grapes.
Our vineyard does not grow pinot noir - these
grapes were purchased from a nearby farm
by our winemaker, who is starting his own label.
We will be selling his wine alongside our
estate-grown wines in the tasting room.

The grapes get hand-sorted as they traverse the
conveyor belt off the de-stemming machine, as
small stem pieces and leaves sometimes make
their way through.

Pinot noir grapes taking the plunge...

...into a huge plastic vat, from whence the skins and juice,
called "must", will be transferred into the oak barrels
in which it will ferment. Our white wines are all
fermented in stainless steel to keep them crisp and fruity.
Red wines have the strength to stand up to the dusky flavors
that our French oak barrels lend.

Last but not least, the plastic bins must all be
hosed down and re-stacked for another day
of harvesting! This was my chore, and
I can tell you that grape juice makes
a marvelous organic hairspray... if you
don't mind clouds of yellow jackets and
fruit flies around your head, that is!

Harvest has begun and life is ZANE-y!

2008-09-23T17:59:00.001-07:00

Well, here it is, the end of September... and that means harvest time at the vineyard! I don't think Billy Zane (pictured above) has anything to do with it, particularly, however I must admit that when I see him, ripe fruit does come to mind.

And so... ahem... yes... - the grapes used to make white wines are the first to finish "verasion" (or coloring), and the first to be harvested. Today the vineyard field hands harvested the chardonnay grapes which will be used in our champagne. We purchased these grapes from a nearby farm, as we don't grow chardonnay grapes on our own land, and when they were ready for harvesting, our workers went over and did the cutting by hand. Next week we will be harvesting the Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which we do grow on site.

They brought back truckloads of yellow containers full of grapes, and proceeded to dump them into the de-stemming machine. Unfortunately, my camera batteries were not charged up, and so I resorted to using my cell phone camera for the following photo - but you will get the idea. The guy at the top is dumping grapes into the machine, and about midway down, just between the white slats on the fence, you can see the pile of green grape stems that have been summarily separated from the grapes!

Sadly, with the harvesting season comes the fruit fly season. We have wine bottles with just a bit of red wine left in the bottom stationed all over the tasting room - in the bathroom, on the porch, near the register, because if we didn't the clouds of fruit flies would severely limit the customers' enjoyment of the fine beverages we have on offer.

"I've never seen a fruit fly, but anyway -
it's don't ask don't tell!"

On Saturday, the tasting room was so cram-packed with patrons that you couldn't walk a straight line from the counter to the door. All. Day. Long. Yesterday and today have been extreme in the other direction - only a handful of people have come by. Yesterday's most notable customers were five Polish guys, only one of whom spoke English. Made explaining the wine list and describing the wine characteristics particularly interesting.

Today I got sent out on a delivery errand in the vineyard junker - an old Jeep Cherokee. I rolled down the windows and cranked up the radio, and had a blast bombing around the North Fork. I found the wine store fairly easily, made my delivery, and was back at the farm before I knew it. Didn't take long, but broke up the day for me a bit. It's also good for me to get out and get familiar with the local area, since most of our B&B guests have no idea where they are, either, and often ask me for directions.

On a sad note, the vineyard owners just found out that the vineyard dog (the border collie) has liver cancer, and is not expected to see another harvest season. It's making cheerfulness a bit difficult for everyone, and we are all giving her extra love and pets and letting her play with her frisbee as much as she wants. The next few weeks are going to be tough, as harvest is really getting into full swing, and her health is going to be declining more rapidly as the weeks progress. Your kind thoughts are appreciated, and I know they will be winging towards the North Fork when you read this.

TARZAN OF THE grAPES!

2008-09-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today I did something that most people would wish for if they rubbed a lamp and a genie popped out. I saw into the future.

Or, more specifically, into the "futures". In winespeak, futures are wine orders which are placed at least a year in advance of the actual harvest. At my vineyard, they hold a yearly dinner for the people who are on the emailing list. At this dinner, folks are wined and dined - they enjoy wines from the vineyard and eat delectable victuals prepared by the chef/owner. At this shindig, the invitees fill out order forms (and pay up front, I might add) for wines whose grapes have not yet been harvested.

Once the grapes have been harvested, and the wine has been made, these notebooks full of futures orders must be gone through. All the futures clients must be called personally to let them know that their futures are ready to be picked up or shipped. If they are picking them up personally, we ask that they call us an hour ahead of time so that we can box up the wines they have ordered and have them ready when they arrive.

Mind you, these wines may not actually be ready to drink at this time. The owners of the vineyard send out special emails to let people know when the 2007 merlot, for example, is ready for drinking. Some of the wines that have been bottled will not be ready for premium drinking enjoyment for another several months. But people have already paid for this wine, and we would much rather they pick it up and take it home and let it mature there, so we have more room in our storehouses - harvest is just about to begin!

If the customers ordering futures chose to have them shipped rather than picking them up in person, then we get to what I spent the day doing!

There is a large, climate-controlled building on the property which houses all the cased wines. They are arranged by type and year, and are stacked on huge pallets that rise up to the ceiling. Each pallet of wine is wrapped in super-thick saran-wrap type material, and topped with a cardboard cover. In order to "pull futures", someone has to go inside the warehouse and get down cases of wine in the appropriate year's vintage for the customer.

Never having done "futures" before, I was unaware of exactly what this would entail when the boss gave me a task list which said "ship futures". She did say that "over the next two weeks" we would be boxing up the futures orders to be shipped out.

Yesterday, the first thing I did was to go through the two alphabetized notebooks of futures orders and cull out the ones that the clients had marked "ship". Then I spent the entire day making phone calls to the "shippers" and the "picker-uppers" to let them know that the futures wines were ready to be picked up or about to be shipped.

Today, I took the stack of "shippers" and wrote down a list of how many bottles/cases of each type of wine were being ordered. On a separate piece of paper, I wrote down how many shipping boxes I needed (case boxes, six-fer boxes, two-fer boxes, and the inner cardboard wraparounds which go inside every shipping box). Then I took my lists, and a two-wheeled hand truck, and headed over to the case storage warehouse.

Once at the warehouse, I selected all the boxes I would need, and carted them back to the fermenting room, which is just off the tasting room. The fermenting room perimeter is lined with huge stainless steel contraptions (will take photos tomorrow, perhaps) but the central cement floor is clear right now, so I used that as my staging area.

Then I went back to the case storage warehouse and began "pulling futures". What this means, really, is that I had to search for each type of wine, then search for boxes which bore the specific year being ordered, and then I had to get the right number of cases of each.

Sounds easy, right? Well, not when you consider that some of the pallets that I had to reach were up near the ceiling, and had not yet been unwrapped from their plastic cocooning. I had to play Tarzan, as it were, and climb up on top of staggered pallets of wine, sometimes reaching across the treacherous chasms between the stacked pallets to get the right cases of wine. Some of the pallets were stacked so closely together that even when I was walking on the floor between them, I had to carry cases of wine over my head because there wasn't enough room for my admittedly voluptuous body and the case of wine to fit between the pallets.

Needless to say, I was a ball of sweat within ten minutes - and the entire pulling process took me over half an hour! I put all the cases of wine (around sixteen or so) up near the loading door, and then used the hand truck to cart them (three at a time) around to the fermenting room.

Without going through every painstaking detail, I will just say that I pulled and boxed up every single futures order to be shipped, double checked them all to make sure the orders were perfect, made shipping labels, and charged the customers' credit cards for shipping.... TODAY.

Considering that the boss said that we'd be shipping futures "over the next two weeks", I don't think they've ever seen what TARZAN OF THE grAPES could do with futures once she was set loose on the project.

I can assure you that TARZAN OF THE grAPES never realized she had this many muscles in her body before, and the only reason she knows about them now is because they are SORE.

The truly classic moment, however, came at around 3:00PM, when the boss walked in to the fermenting room and surveyed the neatly arrayed rows of perfectly packed futures boxes, and said...

"Well, this was a pretty easy futures shipment, eh?"

My face tried and couldn't find a suitable expression, and so remained blank.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

2008-09-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

As with every job - even a "dream job" - there comes a time when the harsh realities set in and you realize that everything isn't wine and roses all the time. As I am journaling my experiences at the vineyard, I am not going to pamper you, Dear Readers, by only including the happy little butterflies and fluffy bunnies. If I get beat up, you're going to get a few bruises too.

This past weekend was one of the toughest yet (another wedding) - but yesterday really took the cake. My schedule said to come in at 8AM, because we were serving a wedding brunch before the happy couple and their assorted family sailed off into the sunset. I was up at 6AM getting ready for the hour-long drive in.

I got there exactly ten minutes early, put my purse in the tasting room loft, and headed over to the main house to help set up the brunch. They immediately had me carting furniture around from building to building, so that by 8:25AM I was a dripping mass of sweat. I still had to serve food and beverages at the brunch and then work the tasting room until closing time afterwards, and I felt like a work horse that had been lathered up in its traces before the first field had been plowed.

Working brunches could be a very pleasant and easy affair, but for some reason here they are turned into somewhat of a boxing match. Because the owners choose to let the staff work independently instead of giving us our own areas to handle, it's a bit like jousting in front of the King.

Daniel stands at the cooking island in the kitchen, which is right next to the tables we're serving, and he watches our every move. As I walk toward the buffet table to remove an empty frittata platter, Susan darts in from the other side and grabs the platter, bringing it back to Daniel for a refill. Score: Susan 1, Vina 0. As I move to the coffee table to check on the level of the coffee, I see Brenda run to the kitchen and come out with a pot of coffee. Foiled again. When I have a tray full of dirty dishes that I have collected from the tables and am bringing them back to the tiny 3"X3" washing station at the back of the house, the housekeeper steps in front of me and opens the big stainless steel refrigerator door (which completely blocks access to the washing station) and stands there, deciding which milk container she would really rather select.

Instead of the crew working together to get what should be an extremely easy job done efficiently, everyone is scuttling around trying to look the best in front of the boss. When I am faced with situations like this, I tend to retract - if someone else wants to do the thing I was obviously heading over there to do, then I let them. But that results in my standing still, looking as if I don't want to work. Which, of course, is neither true nor desirable considering I've just been made a salaried employee. So what ends up happening is that I walk around the floor, moving from station to station, trying to get something useful done before anyone else cuts me off at the pass. It's a bit off-putting, to tell you the truth.

If the coffee station, the buffet table, and the dining tables were each assigned to one employee, it would all go off perfectly. With a business this small in scale, there is no reason for the staff to go running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Especially considering the fact that there were fifty guests also milling about the room, going between the dining tables and the buffet tables. Utter chaos.

And then there's the issue of the food. Daniel makes delectable, scrumptious food for the brunch, and then spends the next two hours muttering resentfully under his breath that people actually want to eat it. (The nerve of them!) He gets highly offended when the bacon platter is emptied, and flat out refuses to refill it until he deems the precise moment has come, no matter how many brunch attendees have not even had one piece yet. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks the bacon would be better served in small glass picture frames, so that everyone could take one piece home with them and hang it on the wall. If making home-cured maple bacon is so expensive that it causes a financial overload and emotional trauma to actually serve it to your guests, then perhaps, in the end, everyone would be happier with Jimmy Dean sausages. I'm just saying.

At noon, the buffet was over and it was time to break down the tables and get all the rented chinaware back into its green wire cages and get over to the tasting room to begin a six-hour stint.

I love working the tasting room - don't get me wrong. My gripe here is this. I didn't get a lunch break. Not any kind of a break, actually. I worked on my feet from 8AM to 6:30PM without so much as a sit-down. For some reason this is considered normal and acceptable by the owners, and I'm here to tell you that, along with the rest of me, my feet are screaming mad!

When I got home, I hobbled to the couch and my husband brought me a bucket of ice water to put my feet in. Thank goodness this was the last vineyard wedding of the year!

My Two Week Review

2008-09-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

In honor of passing my two week review yesterday with extremely humble and self-effacing flying colors (and thus moving from lowly hourly pay to a pretty exciting starting salary), I have invited a few of my old friends over to celebrate.

"But this is mahvelous!
Quick, dahling - call Carey!
I don't vant to celebrate alone!"

"Well, this is just grand. Let's call Jimmy
and see what he has to say about it!"

"Why... why, C.K. Dexter Haven, I told you
she could do it! See here, I even brought
some champagne to toast the event!"

"And you wanna know why I brought champagne?
Well, I'll tell you, C.K. Dexter Haven!"

"Because champagne is a great levelererer."

"We'd have to agree... NYUK NYUK NYUK!"

"Well, I musht shay, your shuckshesh leavesh
me shaken, not shtirred."

"Golly gee damn! You did it!
Cat and I wish you all the best."

"We're so proud of you! We'd be happy to
send over some of our home-made
elderberry wine!"

"Here's looking at your new career, kid."

A Wedding Story

2008-09-09T06:09:00.001-07:00

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
William Butler Yeats 1865 - 1939

This past weekend, we had a wedding at the vineyard! Since a vineyard is not a catering hall, a vineyard wedding does not mean you get things "your way". In order to make the entire thing workable (and profitable, of course) these are the rules:

1. The entire B&B must be booked for the weekend, regardless of whether or not all the rooms will be occupied.

2. The rehearsal dinner is composed, served, and cooked by the vineyard. The only alcoholic beverages served are house wines.

3. Any wine served at the wedding reception is - you guessed it.

While this may seem to be a little restrictive at first blush, consider this:

1. The vineyard is a small family business, not a conglomerate - it would be impossible to host a wedding with non-wedding customers in the B&B, both for logistical reasons and for the privacy of the bride and groom, and it would be unreasonable to expect the vineyard to lose revenue on rooms that would have otherwise been occupied, and so the "all or nothing" policy.

2. If people want a wedding where Uncle Joe gets his required six scotch and sodas, then they are free to go to a catering hall. If they want a real vineyard wedding, the only thing to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy the wonderful food and beverages specially selected and prepared by the chef. When enjoying a unique and specialized experience, the best thing to do is to let the proprietors do what they do best. (Same goes for restaurant service - when dining in a specialty restaurant, it's wise never to insist on ordering something the way your Aunt Bessie made it... you will never be satisfied. Better to give Aunt Bessie a visit. She misses you, and you never write.)

3. We're assuming that people chose a vineyard wedding because they like wine. And as a vineyard is a business, we need to sell wine! So, if someone gets married here, it follows that they have tasted and enjoyed our wine, and will be happy to serve it to their guests!

***

FRIDAY NIGHT

As it turned out, the bridal party and their immediate family were lovely people. The rehearsal dinner on Friday night went off without a hitch. Hors d'oeuvres were served on the outside deck along with a few selections of our lightest wines.

I wasn't entirely sure that all the guests were aware that there would be wine served with every course of the meal, as they were really slugging it down out there on the deck! I was "wine girl", and the other servers trotted around with plates of goat cheese rolled in fresh shredded basil, mushroom toast, and vichy-soise soup shots that had a spoon of shrimp salsa balanced on the top.

When it came time to go inside and eat, the guests all seated themselves fairly quickly. Thank goodness there was only one toddler, and she was a darling. Brenda went and got the little girl her own basket of grapes and a bowl of melon, since most of the food being served was "grown-up food". The tyke was thrilled to have her own special little setup, and was good as gold.

The dinner comprised a salad starter, followed by delicious rare steaks of perfectly seasoned Long Island Duck breast, striped bass with a crumbled breaded topping, summer squash and zucchini with blistered cherry tomatoes, and a pasta called "fregola" (resembles extremely large cous-cous) with dried cranberries tossed in. The meal was served family style, so we brought around platters and let folks serve themselves.

Fregola

Dessert was a heavenly confection of home-made shortbread scones, split and filled with crème fraîche and the largest, ripest blackberries I have ever seen in my life. Those berries were half the size of a golf ball, no lie! Unfortunately, the desserts were made exactly to order (there was even a momentary panic because the little girl had taken one, and they had only prepared enough for the adult guests), so there were no leftovers for the staff - waaaaaah!

However, there were leftovers from the dinner, and we all got a nice glass of wine and a heaping plate of dinner after the last dishes were cleared. It was wonderful!

***

SATURDAY

On Saturday, the day of the wedding, a hurricane was due to hit Long Island. It rained all day, and I don't really know how the wedding ceremony went because the tasting room was actually open for regular business during the day, and the ceremony was being held after hours so I was gone by then.

What I do know is that some hours before the wedding, an improbably huge tour bus pulled into our tiny gravel parking lot and hordes of elegantly dressed guests poured forth and began to stroll around the grounds.

Some of them wandered into the tasting room, and asked if free wine went with the wedding. Upon discovering that they would have to pay for it unless they were willing to wait until the reception, they then requested to buy bottles of wine and bring them over to the reception tent and start their own little pre-wedding party. This request was also denied, partly to stop the ceremony from becoming a drunken fiasco and partly because the glassware in the tasting room is ours, and the glassware in the reception tent was from the rental company. Any of our wine glasses that ended up over there would disappear into the rental truck, never to be seen again. So the slightly miffed guests ordered a glass of wine each, tossed them back like a shot, and left the glasses on the tasting room counter.

Funniest bit was finding out later that the tour bus? With the wine-crazy guests? Had come to THE WRONG WEDDING. They were supposed to be at some other vineyard wedding! I never got to find out if they made it on time, or whether the guests from our wedding were on some other tour bus somewhere in Dubuque... I was too busy serving wine to the lunatic people that ventured out on a hurricane day to slog through the mud and go wine-tasting. There were quite a few!

***
SUNDAY MORNING

I had to get there extra-early on Sunday, as the bridal party was having one last hurrah - a brunch. We set up tables in the bright sun and gusty winds, which all promptly tried to take off like three-masted schooners, knotted tablecloths filling like sails.

Plonking heavy things down on top of them seemed the only solution, so we had one table full of glassware and pitchers of water, juices, and iced tea. Another table had a coffee urn (non-functional, rented, no big surprise there) with coffee cups and assorted coffee-related accoutrements. Two other tables bore plates and flatware, and hosted frittatas, home-cured maple bacon, fruit, granola, and yogurt.

We had artfully arranged teak lawn chairs and tables around on the grass, leaving the deck free for buffet traffic. All was in perfect order, and we were set for a lovely brunch.

Except.

That same day, there was a local tour happening in the area, and the first stop on the tour was our vineyard. Which means that loads of people were being directed to park outside the front entrance and walk up the drive, past the brunch, and lots of these people thought the brunch was part of their tour! They tried to wander in the front walkway, they artfully dodged the bright yellow caution tape we'd put up around the lawn area of the brunch, and I was the watchdog who spotted them and redirected them to the rear of the house where the tour tickets were being sold.

Excuse me, are you with the
wedding brunch or the tour?

My security duties did not end there. No, sir. You see, the kitchen in which the breakfast was being prepared is part of Daniel and Brenda's personal home. It's attached to the B&B but separated by locking sliding wooden doors inside. We servers had one glass door through which we were bringing out food, bringing in used plates and glasses, bringing out refills for the coffee urn and drinks, bringing in emptied serving platters, bringing out refilled food platters... you get the idea. This one door was the service door. Would have been apparent to anyone that had half a brain.

And yet.

The guests that appeared at this brunch were a far different crowd than the ones that attended the rehearsal dinner. They were rude and pushy and greedy. The brunch was prepared for sixty guests - guests who were arriving in dribs and drabs, not all at once. Therefore the food being prepared was portioned to feed sixty people. And yet the first twenty people to arrive ate almost half of the food! One chubby pre-teen brat came up and loaded his plate with seven pieces of the maple-cured bacon... Daniel nearly went apoplectic.

When are they bringing out
more baconnnnn Mummy?

Luckily, the groom saw this happen and came to us and asked that we "slow down" the output of bacon, as people were just scarfing the stuff down like it was a bag of Cheetos. He didn't exactly put it in those words, but Daniel sure did, once safely back in the privacy of the kitchen.

Not that there was much privacy - there were five or so brunch guests who made multiple attempts to walk into the house, and each time I stepped in front of them, standing in the doorway, and politely asked if there was anything I could do for them. As the doorway is small and I am not, there was nothing they could do short of bodily shoving me out of the way (which I am absolutely sure one man considered doing - he had that certain gleam of entitled malice in his piggy little eyes which says "I'm dressed up and I've got lots of money and I kick my dog when no one is looking, so what do you think I'd do to you?"), they could not gain entry.

What do you mean I can't go in the house?
Don't you know WHO I AM???

I explained as briefly and politely as I could that this was a private residence, and guests were welcome to enjoy the brunch out on the lawn. I explained that this was the service entrance, and that allowing people inside might cause injury, since hot foods were being prepared at the open cooking surface. I did not mention that the most likely cause of bodily injury might come from the owner, who was standing inside ready to rip people's heads off if they didn't get the hell out of his house.

There was, of course, the bathroom issue. There is a one-person bathroom down a hall past the kitchen which was available for guest use - however this did not mean that crowds of people were welcome to go trooping into the house and lounge around the cooking area waiting for their friends to vacate the lavatory.

The same five nosy, annoying guests tried the "but we have to use the restroom" ploy, and I told them I would happily let them in one at a time just as soon as the person currently in there made an exit.

Ms. Attitude snapped "Where's my escort?" when I told her that the restroom was free. Mr. Obnoxious (who muttered something like "killer" during a previous attempt to enter the house - I'm not entirely sure he didn't say "kill her"...) let his four-year-old son run into the house unaccompanied, and I promptly asked him to call the boy back and accompany him to the restroom when it was free. As he and his son left the house afterward, the little boy asked loudly, "Why aren't we ever coming back here, Daddy? Whyyyyy aren't we ever coming back heeeeere?".

I wanted to shout, "Because someone up there LIKES US." Instead, I clamped my jaw shut. I should get a prize or something.

Day Six - The "One Week Review"

2008-09-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

Give me a bowl of wine.

In this I bury all unkindness.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
in Julius Caesar

Yesterday marked my first week at the vineyard. While very few customers came in, it was still an important day for me for several reasons.

I got my first official tour of the Bed & Breakfast. Until yesterday, I had not seen the guest rooms, and only knew their names from the correspondingly etched keychains that are kept in the tasting room. I was given the tour as if I were a guest checking in, so that I can check guests in by myself in the future.

The four guest rooms are unique and lovely each in their own way. The amenities are modern and chic, yet the decor is simple and understated. There are robes and slippers, flat screen televisions, hair dryers, irons, and individual heat/air conditioning controls. Fresh flowers from the gardens grace each room, and the color palettes are rich and comforting. I think my favorite is the one with the dark teal walls...

The guest living room is stocked with bottles of wine (of course). Two are opened each evening for all the guests to share and enjoy, and the shelves are stocked with bottles for the guests to purchase. They can drink them whenever they want during their stay, and "settle up" at breakfast the next morning. It's a relaxed and friendly way to do business.

I learned how to instruct guests to be polite and not intrude on the owners' private areas of the house. (Last week, apparently, some guests wandered onto the owners' porch and were peering in their livingroom windows after the tasting room closed! Big no-no.) They are not big on posting signs, because they feel it detracts from the ambiance and they don't want the polite, conscientious guests to have to see "Don't This" and "No That Allowed" signs everywhere they look.

Brenda also gave me my "one week review", which was basically a verbal reckoning between us that they liked my work well enough to continue training me, and that I liked the work enough to commit to staying on and not wasting the time they were spending training me. I smiled when Brenda said "It's hard to call this a review when you haven't really been doing anything wrong. Usually I can make up a list of things a new person needs to work on, but you seem to be getting the hang of everything fairly quickly."

Yay!

After giving me a review, Brenda also told me the story of her and Daniel and how they met and married and started restaurants and sold them and then created the vineyard. As a representative of the vineyard, I need to be able to describe the whole picture for customers, to make them a part of the ongoing saga.

The vineyard staff are all caught up right now with thinking about the upcoming weekend, the wedding they will be hosting, and the possibility of hurricane weather coinciding with the ceremony and possibly damaging the vines! Farm life is never dull.

On my way out at the end of the day, I snapped these photos. I think even my truck likes it here. Doesn't it look peaceful among the vines?

Day Five - Labor Day at the Vineyard

2008-09-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

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.

Day Four - Why Sunday is different

2008-08-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

For most of the working world, Sunday is the "last hurrah" of the weekend, and thus a very busy day for vineyard tasting rooms. This morning, as I finished the last swallow from my cup of coffee and kissed my husband goodbye, jumping into my little orange pickup truck with one of my Harry Potter books on CD already in the stereo, I really had no idea what lay ahead of me on my trip to work.

In a nutshell, what I found was that the drive from my house to the Long Island Expressway was completely smooth and uncluttered. Most people in my hometown party pretty hearty on Saturday nights, and sleep well through the earlier hours of Sunday morning. All the lights were green, and it was smooth sailing on the highway - all the way out to my exit.

However, once I got off the highway and onto the lovely and scenic two-lane roads that take me all the way to the vineyard, this is what I was looking at:

Yes...

All.

The.

Way.

To.

The.

Vineyard.

I kept hoping against hope that the truck (which was green, and a lot less attractive than the fancy-chromy one pictured here) would make a turn (either right or left, I wasn't being picky) at SOME POINT, allowing me to get somewhere within range of the posted speed limit, which is 45 mph. I was lucky to get anywhere past 35 with this behemoth in front of me.

One brave fool driving behind me decided he was going to get ahead in life and blew past me at the first opportunity, only to get stuck directly behind the tanker truck for the rest of his journey. One step forward, two steps back.

Whether it was sheer luck, or, more likely, my brilliant travel planning, I still managed to arrive at work ten minutes early, time-sucking tanker truck notwithstanding. I worked a full and glorious day, pouring wines for scads of people trying to eke the last drop of enjoyment out of the weekend, and at 6:30pm I finally threw my tired bones into my truck to head for home.

Except... what did I find? My regular route home, which I am usually able to navigate at the posted speed limit without obstruction save the occasional last-minute farmstand hopper, had suddenly become an interminable caterpillar of slow-moving vehicles. Head to tail, head to tail they crawled - SUVs, Jaguars, Porsches, Volvos, all going as slowly as possible, perhaps in the hopes that they could slow time itself by driving slowly, thereby putting off the coming week.

But HEY! Tomorrow is a holiday for the rest of the world (not for me, I am working a full day!), so what have they got to drag their tires about? I know not. What I do know is that the sluggish traffic didn't just affect the two-lane roads, but even the highway. At one point all three lanes of the L.I.E. were crawling along at 30mph, and I nearly wept.

My feet are so sore at the end of the nine-hour day that they literally pulsate. Just pressing down on the brakes and gas causes me to flinch, and I really just wanted to get home already.

Alas, it was not to be. It took me over an hour to get home this evening, and I felt every minute of it.

And now I see how very different Sundays can be, depending on what you do for a living, and where you do it!

Day Three - A New Blend

2008-08-30T06:27:00.001-07:00

What I see when I look across the counter

Yesterday was my third day at the vineyard, and it was a new experience among new experiences. It was the first day that I worked the tasting room with another regular employee, and not the owners. Susan is a lovely girl in her late twenties who just happens to be dating the vineyard's winemaker. She is planning to go away to culinary school in a couple of months, which is one of the main reasons they need me.

Up in the loft

We worked really well together, and I learned quite a lot about the wines from her. Since her boyfriend is in charge of actually blending the wine, which determines its ultimate flavor, her knowledge leans more toward the composition and grape qualities than it does toward the farming aspects of the vineyard. I am finding that everyone has their own area of expertise, and it is beneficial for me to be able to spend time with each of them and tap into their well of knowledge.

The tasting room - behind the counter

One of the regular projects involved with running a tasting room is keeping the bags stocked (you can see them in the above picture, on that small table next to the loft ladder). In order to keep the bags stocked, they need to have wine label stickers applied, and an information card stapled on. Susan and I sat and finished 250 bags in less than ten minutes. Because there are so few employees at the vineyard, speed is just as important as accuracy when it comes to job completion. The tasks may seem small, but they are myriad - and customers can walk in at any moment of the day, so the sooner you can wipe the glasses or prep the wine bags or dust the bottles or sweep the floor, the better.

The rear window... sans Jimmy Stewart

During the day, some VIP folks from a well-known wine magazine came by for a tour and lunch with the owners. While I was helping to serve breakfast, I saw the B&B housekeeper setting a beautiful table on the deck outside for the lunch. There were vases of cut flowers from the gardens, and sparkling flatware and china. I was dying to know what Daniel was going to cook for them, but I never got the chance to find out. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was delicious.

The aptly named Butterfly Bush, just next to the tasting room door

When Brenda came by the tasting room after they had left, she said they were talking about doing an article on the vineyard in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Exciting stuff for me, although I have to say that the walls of the tasting room are lined with articles from the New York Times and other major publications, so they are pretty well used to the attention by now.

On deck: candle holders made from our wine barrels by a local artisan

One of the high points of my day was when Daniel and Brenda came in to the tasting room and brought some of their close friends with them. Brenda told me that she had brought the bottle of the mead that my husband and I made (I gifted her a bottle of our wedding mead, a 2002 vintage) when they went to their friends' house last night, and they fell in love with it.

Weathered wood buildings, circa 1880

Their friends (whose names escape me now) are a Jewish couple, and they said that honey plays a major role in the celebration of Rosh Hashana. They've decided that our mead is a delicious and unique way to use honey for that honored occasion, and they asked if they could buy a bottle of our mead. I said that by law we cannot sell it, but that I would be happy to barter with them - a bottle for a bottle. And so it is agreed!

Waiting for the customers to arrive and play ball

I'm really excited, because our humble little home-made mead is making rather a splash with the "bigwig" wine folks. According to the government, we can make 200 gallons a year for our own consumption and for gifting to others, but we may not sell it without getting a winery license. Most of the meads that you find for sale in a liquor store are just wine with honey added to them, and are not "true meads".

View from the front door

In my whirling imagination, I wonder if it would be possible to become the "head mead maker" at the vineyard. Now, wouldn't that be something?

A tasting table, complete with water jug, spit bucket,
wine lists, and more barrelwood candle holders of course

Day Two! Oy, my aching feet!

2008-08-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Day two, in which Vina learns several new things.

Firstly, standing on your feet for nine hours a day on hardwood floors HURTS! Even though I bought special flats with Dr. Scholl's gel insoles built right in, I am literally hobbling from my truck to my house at the end of the day. I suppose this is just more incentive to lose some weight, because all that extra I'm carrying around these days is just extra agony for my feet when all's said and done.

Secondly, some people are easier to work with than others. Some people are friendly and willing to acknowledge that when you have been doing a job for only, oh, say, TWO DAYS, you're bound to make a minor mistake or two on the odd occasion. These easy-going types are happy to point out that you might want to try doing things another way, but they also express their support and understanding that starting a new job is stressful and that one is likely not to be good at everything right off the bat.

Some people are not. Some people hover around waiting for you to make one little blunder, and then they point it out to you in the most rigid way possible, and in a way most designed to make you feel like a complete idiot. Some people think they are so perfect that they must intrude on any little task you are trying to complete, and show you how much better they do it. They are faster, cooler, and better at everything than you are, and how dare you even try to accomplish anything while they are present, because you have no hope of ever being as good at it as they are!

Lucky for me, I have already discovered who is the former and who is the latter in my new workplace, and can therefore conduct myself accordingly so as to garner as little attention from the latter as possible.

The tasting room got really busy today - lots of wine got tasted, and lots of wine got bought! It gave me a chance to stretch my wings a bit and practise giving the wine list description to more people. I am getting more comfortable talking about the wines because at the end of the day, Barbara lets me taste one or two of them. Now I know what "notes of coffee and chocolate" mean in a merlot. I also know what "a flavor that is more reserved" is like, compared to an "aggressive" flavor. Another bonus is that more people = more tips! Yay!!!

I am also discovering that I don't hate white wine. I always thought I did, and now I realize it's probably because all the white wines I have tasted previously were oak matured, which gives them a flavor that I don't like. All the wines we make are fermented in stainless steel only, so the flavors are bright and crisp and smell very fruity, even though they are dry wines. I like this!

Another thing I learned today is that red wine contains histamines, which come from the skin of the grapes. Often, when people get a headache from drinking red wine, they blame the added sulfites when actually it is the histamines that are causing it. In the 1970s and '80s, winemakers in the USA were pretty heavy-handed with sulfites, and it did cause a lot of headaches. But now they are realizing that using only minimal sulfite additives still protects the integrity of the wine, and isn't migraine inducing.

Tomorrow is Friday, and that is supposed to be a "BIG DAY" for wine tasting. I can only imagine how loud my feets are going to be screaming by tomorrow night!

Day One!

2008-08-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

I pulled into the vineyard driveway this morning just about fifteen minutes early. I am slowly getting a feel for the drive time, which is nearly an hour, and no longer have to use my Google map directions that I printed out on my first run.

This morning the sun was out, and the birds were singing. I had set up the tasting room with Brenda, and we had headed over to the B&B where she was showing me the ropes in the kitchen. Suddenly, she looked out the screen door and shrieked, "The birds! Look at the birds! I'll be right back!". For one awful second I thought I was going to have to round up the school children and go running madly through the streets.

Before I could think to ask Daniel (who was busily searing mouth-wateringly aromatic home-made breakfast sausage patties in a cast iron skillet) where she had gone, there was a loud BANG-SWOOOOOOOSH! sound, closely followed by a minor explosion similar to that of an M-80. I jumped out of my skin and then laughed as I saw Brenda running around the edges of the vineyard with a starter pistol. The blackbirds all took off at once, swooping away in great clouds to go feast on someone else's nearly ripened grapes.

When we carried the breakfast (which consisted of herbed scrambled eggs, the aforementioned home-made sausage patties, grated zucchini fritters, freshly baked corn bread, and peach and strawberry smoothies made with locally grown produce) in to the B&B guests, they were laughing about the bird gun too, saying they thought someone was setting off fireworks in the streets.

The B&B has four rooms, and last night two of them were occupied. The two couples at breakfast this morning were very friendly - one older couple who had included us on their world tour, and a young couple who lived in Manhattan that were just on a little summer getaway. Part of the package for guests staying at the B&B is a free wine tasting (a selection of four wines) at the tasting room, and the young couple came by for their tasting as they were checking out.

While I will be assisting with breakfasts in the B&B, my real "domain", as it were, will be the tasting room. It's lovely, with big windows and a raw wood interior - naked beams, cathedral ceiling and loft. It looks out on a lovely grey weathered deck overhung by a matching pergola, and beyond that the vineyards roll away into the distance. Teak chairs and tables dot the deck, making it a perfect place to sit and enjoy some wine on a beautiful day. Inside, there's soft music playing (today's selection included Emmy Lou Harris albums) and an oversized restroom is available for road-weary travelers to freshen up.

Where I stand, behind the bar, there are racks of wine for sale and tasting, and a small refrigerator where the white and rosé wines wait to be tasted. Behind me, a wooden drop-down ladder leads upstairs to the loft, where supplies, the stereo, and my personal belongings are stashed. There are also two windows behind me, with lovely green pottery and plants on the sills, allowing a refreshing cross-breeze to cruise through the building.

Today, the first thing Brenda showed me was how to set up the tasting room to make it ready for opening. This involved filling water pitchers to set out on every table - for palate rinsing or rinsing glasses between tastes. There are silver "spit buckets" or "dump buckets" which must be placed out, as well as laminated wine menus and lovely curved candleholders hand-crafted from wine barrel staves, which are for sale.

During the day, in between tastings, glasses must be run through the dishwasher, then polished and placed back on the shelf. If bottles of wine are used up, new ones must be opened and the empties put in the recycling box. A close count of all the wine is performed at the beginning and end of each day, and recorded in a book.

In the middle of all this business stuff, though, the customers just keep coming through the door. And they not only taste wine, but they buy loads of it! One couple came in, tasted four or five wines, and bought over $200 worth at a pop! The main thing to remember when doing a tasting is to start off with the lighter, or whiter, wines and move along toward the reds and heavier wines so that the glass doesn't get cross-contaminated with flavors. We regularly moved from Chardonnay to Rose to Table Red to Merlot. If a customer only wants to taste white wines, then we'd start with the lightest and move to the most concentrated flavors.

I was surprised at how many people came to the tasting room with small children in tow - lucky for them the owners' dog, a black and white border collie, was happy to go outside and play fetch with her tennis ball as long as the kids were willing to throw it.

"Ball? Did someone say ball?"

I was very straightforward with the customers today, and told nearly everyone that it was my first day, especially when they asked me questions that I had no idea how to answer. Especially with food and wine customers, one should never try to posture. They'll sniff out your weak points and destroy you. The best bet is always to admit if you don't know something, or if you made a mistake about something, because then you're in charge again and can move forward.

Today's customers were all very gracious and friendly, and seemed glad to be part of my first day there. I listened to Brenda and Daniel as they explained the wine list to each customer, and by the middle of the day they let me try it on my own. By the end of the day, I was able to greet customers, explain the wine list, pour their tasting selections, and ring up their transactions (even credit cards!). The end-of-day cash register and credit card machine procedures will take a while longer to internalize, but I feel pretty proud of myself for being able to handle sales the first day in.

At the end of the day, I asked Brenda how she thought I did, and she seemed really happy with the way everything went. She said she found me easy to work with, and felt we were "simpatico". I felt the same. I am looking forward to becoming really familiar with the wines and knowing my stuff, so she doesn't have to babysit me - and I'm sure she is, too, as there is so much work she could be getting done if she didn't have to be training me. But this is always the way at the beginning of a career.

There was a little excitement in the middle of the afternoon when one gentleman was walking up to the tasting room and the winemaker's dog, a boxer, ran up and nipped him on the back of the leg. Brenda apologized, and thank heavens the man didn't make a scene about it, but that could really have been a bad situation if things had gone differently! Luckily the bite didn't break the skin, but it could have been a child that got bitten, or an elderly customer, or a million other things. The dog was immediately tied up and I didn't see it running loose for the rest of the day.

"But you SAID it was a TASTING ROOM!"

Well, I got to work this morning at 9am, and didn't leave until 6pm, which means I didn't get home until 7pm. And all I had to eat today was a granola bar at about noon (eaten standing up - there is no "lunch break" there), so I am going to mosey down to the kitchen and stuff my face with something.

All in all, I'd say today was a smashing success. Oh, and I made $20 in tips today, too! That will improve as I get better with my shtick, no doubt.

*Please note that the photographs I have used so far in this blog were not taken by me. Once I have completed training, I intend to take my own pictures, but it's impossible to do so just yet. The pictures I'm using now are just for illustration purposes - or to make you snort your soda.

Tomorrow, the journey begins

2008-08-26T07:08:00.001-07:00

There are very definite stages in life, but for some reason you usually can't see them clearly until one chapter has closed and another has opened.

I have just been hired to work at a vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island. When I went for my first interview, I had no idea whether it was going to be an hourly job of standing around dressed like a penguin, serving wine and then going home again, or whether it might be a chance to become an integral part of the living, working, breathing thing that is a vineyard. I feared the former, and longed for the latter.

It was, happily, the latter. The vineyard owners are a wife and husband team. I'll call them Brenda and Daniel. They are into wine making- heart, body, and soul. After owning two successful restaurants in New York City for more than ten years, they decided to sell everything in order to put their life into the vineyard, and now they are living their dream. This dream of theirs includes a lovely Bed & Breakfast as well as the vineyard and wine-making facilities. (Can you say original wood floors from the 1800's? I thought you could!)

Daniel is a chef, and he prepares the scrumptious B&B breakfasts. He also prepares dinners for the special events they host throughout the year, and from what I gather he focuses on the "business end" of business. Brenda focuses on the vineyard itself, working her organic magic on the vines, prepping the compost, managing the field workers, making sure that everything is moving in harmony towards the goal of the all-natural production of fantastic wines.

When I sat down with them yesterday to finalize the hiring process and learn about their plans for me, I found that I will indeed have an integral role at the vineyard, no penguin suit required. Basically, they've both been working seven days a week from the very beginning, and have not really been able to leave for vacation or extended business travel because there is no one else on the premises that can run things while they are away. That is going to be my job.

I'm going to be hosting wine tastings in the tasting room, checking guests in and out of the B&B, doing bookkeeping, keeping the mailing lists up to date, keeping everything clean and stocked, helping as needed with the harvesting process, working at special events, running errands, delivering wine to stores and restaurants, and whatever else they need at the moment. One of the best things about a small family business is the variety - never a dull moment, never stuck doing the same thing day in and day out. I'm also excited to report that Daniel offered to teach me to cook the B&B breakfasts - BONUS!!!

Most of the responsibilities they mentioned are already in my skill set - all except a knowledge of the wines themselves and how they are made. This is going to be my biggest and most important challenge, so that I can discuss our wines intelligently with customers, whether they are first-time wine tasters or experienced connoisseurs. There are two goals at the forefront here. One: For the guests to enjoy themselves. Two: For them to buy lots and lots of our wine!

I feel pretty confident about my selling skills. Waiting tables for all those years taught me a lot about talking to people, making them feel comfortable, encouraging them to try and buy. However, I have a lot of studying ahead of me where the wine is concerned. I need to know what bouquet each wine has, what grapes were used in the making, the prices per bottle and case, and a myriad of other facts and fancies about wine making in general, and our wines in specific.

All this doesn't scare me, though. It whets my appetite! I am anxious to get started learning, and to get my hands dirty. These folks don't know it, but they've just hired the hardest working person they've ever met. The passion I feel for this new journey, this new stage in my life (for I see now that's what it is) lets me know that I am on the right path.

After being in the corporate world for so long, with all its paper-pushing, meaningless, soul-killing bureaucracy, I have been starving for the breath of fresh air that this new opportunity represents both literally and figuratively. I have done with working for the machine. I need to work in order to live, yes. But I no longer need to give up my soul, my creativity, or my self respect to do so. This vineyard is going to give me back every bit of spiritual nutrition that I pour into it and more, and I plan to give it all I've got.

Grass and manure and grapes and dirt and hard work sound like heaven to me. So do bottles and wooden barrels, sunshine and clean linens, dogs and cats and smiling people. Growing things and harvesting them, crafting a living product which brings good cheer to people all over the world... what could be better?

I think I have found the place I was meant to be. Tomorrow is my first day at the vineyard - I'm diving in!