Day Six: Vineyard Sampling

Today, I tasted the wines of tomorrow, in two different senses. In the literal sense, I tasted the 2009 Zinfandels while running analyses on barrel samples. They're coming along great! A couple of them have some good, strong tannins (but not harsh by any means), while others are big, peppery, spicy jam bombs. I think the 2009 Zins will be quite a treat. Hmm... I wonder if I could use my internship position to secure a place on the mailing list.

In the more figurative sense, the interns were all taken out to the Estate vineyard to collect bunch samples. We were taken among the vines and showed how to snip bunches as randomly as possible, so we can get an accurate representation of how the fruit is ripening. While we were out there, we picked a couple of berries and performed the ol' taste test. To confirm my answer to my dad's question: yes, the grapes are very sweet. They don't taste like the wines that they eventually become, because most of the flavors and tannins come from the skins. To get those compounds into the juice, you have to crush the grapes and then let the skins stew in the juice, so that the color and flavor are extracted into the juice. This process is called maceration. So, a ripe berry picked right off the bunch and popped into your mouth will taste surprisingly similar to a regular table grape, just a lot sweeter. Tasting is also a good way to check what's known as "phenolic ripeness" in the grapes. Phenolic ripeness refers to the chemical state of the tannins and phenolic compounds, which are responsible for color and flavor. The way you test for phenolic ripeness is by checking the colors of the stems and seeds. The browner they are, the riper the grapes; the greener, the less ripe.

After we collected the bunches, we took them back to the winery and crushed them up, collected the juice, and ran some tests on it to see how far along the ripening process is. At the Estate vineyard, it looks like we're about 80% there with the sugars (which become alcohol in fermentation). The acids were a little high, but we're not too concerned about that. The stems and seeds were still green, so phenolic ripeness is slow, but it'll get there. The grapes just need more time. Luckily, the forecast is for more heat and sunshine, with no rain in sight, so they can just take their time.

While I'm on the subject of ripeness, I may as well talk a little about vineyard management as pertaining to ripeness and vine/grape health. Ideally, a vineyard manager would want all the grapes to ripen at the same time, so that you can pick them all at the perfect moment: not overripe, not underripe. Unfortunately, in practice, that's rarely going to be the case without some work. When whole clusters don't ripen (stay green), or a second crop of fruit comes in late in the vintage (it happens), you just have to snip 'em off. Being on the vines, they suck up nutrients from the other, riper grapes. This stage of pruning is known as "green dropping". If, on the other hand, you've only got a couple green grapes on an otherwise gorgeous, ripe cluster, though, you just pick them off the bunch as it rolls by on the sorting table during crush. Pretty simple. At the end of the vintage, when harvest is near, here's what you want your vines to look like:

Figure 1. Grapes nearly ready for picking. No green bunches!

Anywho, after analyzing the vineyard samples, I went back into the lab and set up another cork trial (wineries go through a lot of corks, and every lot has to be tested!). After that, the rest of the day was spent finishing up monthly barrel sample analysis. If my (and Patrick's) calculations are correct, then Williams Selyem's 2009s are doing just fine. And thanks to my little taste test on the Zins, I can guarantee their fine-ness.

Interlude: Days Gone Bye

If I were to begin a post with a phrase like, "I don't want to get too philosophical here, but," then that would imply that philosophy is, to some degree, inappropriate or ill-fitted for this blog. That's not to say that it is, but my intentions here are to keep this an informative, entertaining, and educational read about my internship here at Williams Selyem, and not necessarily a diary. But a few things do come to mind that I would like to share in this forum.

For example: I don't want to get too philosophical here, but a thought occurred to me during Friday's BBQ that I would like to share. I had just poured myself a glass of wine, walked over to the railing at the edge of the patio, and was checking out the view. It was something like this, but was in reality far more grand and sweeping in scope:

Figure 1. A typical Russian River Valley scene. Just imagine

this as a panorama.

The view was stretched around me, the sun was setting behind me, there were 50 bottles of ultra premium wine open on a table and at my disposal, and I was surrounded by people with whom I work (even if only temporarily) at a job that we are all passionate about and love doing. Seems to good to be true, right? No shit. I was in a sort of cinematic daze. You know, that sort of transcendental state when you're both the main character and cameraman in your own life? As I stood there at the railing, glass of something great in hand, I took in the view from both first- and third-person.

That's when the thought occurred to me: it felt like the credits should be rolling.

If someone were to make a biopic out of the last two years of my life, that's exactly what would have happened at that BBQ. The credits would have rolled. Act One: I was miserable and unsuccessful in graduate school. Act Two: I decide to take my master's. Act Three: I move back home and take a year to collect myself. Act Four: I decide to stop looking for chemistry jobs and start looking for wine jobs. Act Five: I am offered and accept an internship at Williams Selyem, where I ultimately arrive and am very happy to work at. Credits roll. Okay, maybe the more appropriate close to that dramatization would be "curtain," but you get the idea. It's the end of the story, right? It had the classic fairy tale ending, didn't it? Unless my life ended at that BBQ, the answer is hells no. And if it did, I'm easily the cleanest, best smelling, most civilized zombie in undead lore.

Speaking of zombies, that brings me to the thrust of this post. In the introduction to the first collected edition of his excellent comic, The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman says:

"For me the worst part of every zombie movie is the end. I always want to know what happens next. Even when all the characters die at the end... I just want it to keep going. More often than not zombie movies feel like a slice of a person's life shown until whoever is in charge of the movie gets bored. So we get to know the character, they have an adventure and then, BOOM, as soon as things start getting good... those pesky credits start rolling."

We all know a good story that we feel this way about. A lot of people who read this blog feel that way about the Hitchhiker's Guide universe. (Although, the final book was apparently just released, allowing for some closure regarding the story.) Anyway, that's how I felt about my life in that moment, standing at the railing at the BBQ. I'm just a character (albeit, the central one) in my universe, and I have just finished an adventure. But! I have begun a new adventure. At some point, that one will end, too. Then I will begin a new one, and so on, until la Commedia è finita. That's what I presume, at least.

The point is, the best is yet to come. The introduction has closed, and the real adventure is beginning. Bilbo has returned home a rich little hobbit, but his adoptive nephew Frodo is about to embark on an even more fantastic journey. At the risk of sounding too devoutly Campbellian, I'll put it this way. We don't compare our lives to those of the Heroes; we are the Heroes. My journey just happens to wind its way through some vineyards. Where does it go from here? Who can say? I've got a pocket full of free will, sure, but I'm also just walking the mythic road. And I'll continue to, until those credits roll.

Day Five: Wine Pong

I know you know how Friday ended. I put it in the title. But let me enlighten you as to how Friday began: with coffee.

I was in the barrel room at 7am on Friday, collecting samples. Once I'd collected them, I took them back to the lab, where Patrick and I ran sulfur and volatile acid (VA) analyses. They're simple enough experiments, fit for a General Chemistry lab class. Allow me to briefly explain. Sulfur is a key weapon in the fight against microbial growth in wine. Only small quantities are required, so you'll never detect it. However, if the sulfur content is too low, it's ineffective as an antimicrobial agent. If it's too high, the wine will be noticeably sulfurous. That's why it's important to monitor sulfur levels in the wine until it's bottled. The experiment is simple. In wine, sulfur is present in ionic form, as sulfites and bisulfites. When you add a huge amount of acid (such as 25% phosphoric acid) to the wine, the sulfur is released from solution as sulfur dioxide gas. This gas is collected and bubbled through a peroxide solution with a colored indicator, where it reacts to form sulfates and bisulfates. Titrate that solution with sodium hydroxide until the indicator changes color, and:

Figure 1. BAM! You know the wine's sulfur content.

VAs are even easier, since there's not really any reaction until the titration. You just boil a sample of wine in an enclosed chamber, collect the vapors (acids from the wine that have boiled off) after they've run through a condenser and become liquid again, and then titrate (See Figure 1).

So the lab work is pretty easy, and doesn't take too long per sample. We were pressed for time Friday morning, though, so we only ran a few. After that, I had to go back over to the winery's original lab and set up a cork trial. What is a cork trial, you ask? It's when we test a small sample of corks from a manufacturer's lot, to see if it's contaminated with trichloroanisole (TCA). Also known as "cork taint", TCA is the product of a mold that's found in the bark of cork trees. It smells like moldy cardboard, and (needless to say) it is extremely nasty. Tiny quantities can ruin an otherwise perfectly good wine, so it's very important to minimize its presence in the corks that we plug Williams Selyem bottles with--especially considering our tiny production. All wineries that are serious about quality run cork trials. They're also pretty easy to set up. You just let the corks (usually about 50) soak in glasses of wine (cheap, shitty boxed wine, since it doesn't have a cork) for a day or so, then pour the wine and sniff it. If you smell TCA, don't buy the lot of corks that that sample was from. If not, go ahead and order them.

After I set up the cork trial, I headed back over to the estate lab. Patrick told me that I needed to take some samples to an independent laboratory up in Healdsburg. This is also normal in the industry. Some tests just can't (or won't) be run by wineries, so they'll send out samples for analysis. Anyway, I got to drop some off downtown.

When I got back to the estate, however, the time for lab work was over. The time to drink had come.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Friday we were scheduled to taste the entire 2008 line from Williams Selyem, to get a good idea of what they do. What do they do, you ask? Their whole philosophy is to produce wines in a minimalistic style, manipulating the juice/wine as little as possible, so that the specific nature of the fruit, soil, weather, everything--the terroir--comes through in the finished product. And, I gotta say, after tasting 15 single vineyard Pinots (that is, 15 bottles, each made with grapes from only a single vineyard), they succeed in their goal.

I won't go into details or give tasting notes (email me if you want them) on the various wines, but I will say this: terroir is a real and taste-able concept. For example, a Pinot from one vineyard along Westside road might taste very different from another from just down the road, despite being the same clone of Pinot and being vinted in exactly the same manner. What's different, then? Could be a lot of things: soil type, altitude, sun exposure, nearness to the Russian River (fog territory), etc. That was what the 2008 tasting drove home to me, that you really can "put a vineyard in a bottle". Williams Selyem does an excellent job at doing just that. Now, whether or not you're a fan of this style of Pinot is another thing entirely. For those who want the more traditionally made "Burgundian" style, they'll have to cough up some cash. While the regional blends (great deals) are around the $40-$50 range (when purchased from the winery), the single vineyards start at about $40 and jump well into the triple digits. Whether or not you want to drop that kind of cash on a bottle of wine is, again, your call. I'm very glad to get 50% off a case of wine while I'm here. That will make good drinkin' a lot more affordable.

After the tasting, the interns and winery staff headed out to the patio to enjoy a night of hanging out, awesome BBQ, and some stupendous wines. All the bottles from the 2008 tasting were brought out for consumption, as well as some very special bottles that people brought along. Bob (Cabral, the winemaker) brought a Riesling that was given to him by a former intern, whose family owns a winery in Germany. Some cheeky asshole brought a 2005 Kosta Browne single vineyard Pinot. (For those not in the know, Kosta Brown is kinda viewed as Williams Selyem's "rival" ultra premium Pinot maker. I wouldn't go that far, but there's market competition for sure.) To be honest, the Kosta Browne was hideous. I couldn't even drink it, just spit it out. It burned like a fruit-flavored cough syrup that was on fire in my mouth. Come to think of it, it was exactly like this:

Figure 2. The Flaming Moe. Secret ingredient: Colonel Krusty's Cough Syrup.

The biggest treats of the evening were two bottles that Bob (I think) also brought along. First was a late 90s ('97 or '98) Olivier Leflaive Grand Cru Burgundy. For those who aren't familiar with Burgundian vineyard class designation, that's a Pinot noir from one of Burgundy's highest ranked vineyards. It was okay, but a lot of the fruit had faded, and it was heavily Bretty. The star of the night was the 1988 Chateau Lynch-Bages (traditional Bordeaux blend). It was also just okay. 1988 must have been a cool/wet year, as it tasted very "green" and underdeveloped. There was virtually no fruit left, just a lot of earth tones and tannins. It was definitely cool to try, though.

When things eventually wrapped up with the BBQ, most of the staff headed home, leaving the interns essentially unattended with some tables, some red cups, and about 50 bottles of wine. Hmm... What do you think happened next? Let me give you a hint:

Figure 3. BAM! Drink!

Yup. Wine pong. But not just any wine pong: wine pong with mixed Williams Selyem single vineyard Pinots in the red cups. It was probably the single most expensive game of drinking pong ever. And you know what the real sacrilege was? My team lost. You know what that means? It means my team had to drink a whole lotta wine. Seeing as I was driving that night, I did what any sane winery employee would do: I spit. Let this be a lesson, folks. Whenever you're playing beer/wine/margarita pong, always save that one precious rerack for when it's absolutely necessary. Don't squander it early on. It will doom you to drink large quantities of liquids from red cups.

So that about wraps up my first week at Williams Selyem. It's been a blast so far, and I can't wait for fruit to start coming in so that we're actually making wine. The people I work with are great, and all love what they do. Nobody complains about their jobs, because they want to be there. Many of them (like myself) left jobs that they didn't enjoy to work in wine. Man, let me just say: there's something to be said about being surrounded by people who love their job. It's a contagious state of mind.

Day Four: Lab Monkey

I should preface this post with a disclaimer--to cover my own ass, sure, but also to inform You, The Reader, about the nature of trade secrets in winemaking. When I showed up for training, I signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) saying that I wouldn't divulge details of how Williams Selyem makes their wines. This covers the obvious stuff, like detailed notes about our crush/ferment processes, but it also includes (I'm assuming) detailed laboratory results. Aside from the NDA, I'm also pretty sure that nobody reading this blog really cares that certain barrels of X wine are running hot (overly alcoholic), or that another wine is overly sulfurous. So I just won't include that stuff. Instead, I'll use broad strokes. For example: "The Zins are looking great!" If that, even.

That said, I'll pick up where Day Three's post left off. In the words of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth:

Figure 1. "Good news, everyone! Gordon's been designated as the

enologist's assistant for the remainder of his internship!"

So, what exactly does the Professor mean by this? He means to say that I'll be in the laboratory for most of my time here. From what I understand, I'll also get some exposure to the other duties during/after harvest, but it won't be nearly as extensive as my lab work. This means that I'll get a solid, comprehensive winemaking education: everything from cleaning to equipment setup and operation to grape crushing to fermentation to barreling to laboratory analysis. Damn near everything, really. Which is exactly what I was looking for when I took this internship. In a word: cool.

This setup also means that I'll be set up in Williams Selyem's brand spankin' new facility, just down the road from their winery. The new place (located at their Estate vineyard) is damn swanky, designed to host visitors and events, as well as to cellar and bottle wines. It also has a kick-ass new laboratory, which I will be working in. Today, in that swanky laboratory, I learned how to do a lot of things. The interim enologist (wine scientist), Patrick, taught me how to test for alcohol, sulfur, and volatile acids. Remember when you were taking General Chemistry Lab back in college, and you contracted a serious case of the grumbles from all those goddamn titrations? Remember how you bitched about it and asked when the hell you'd ever titrate out in The Real World? Well, guess what, folks. Enology is a shitload of titration.

Wanna know the sulfur content? Titrate some samples!

Wanna know the volatile acid content? Titrate some samples!

Wanna know the alcohol content? You know the drill.

Actually, wait. For alcohol content, you just let a sample run through the Alcolyzer. It takes like 45 seconds.

For anybody who's ever suffered through General Chemistry Lab, let me reassure you: titration is incredibly important in The Real World. Maybe you won't have to do it in whatever field you go into, but whenever you enjoy a glass of wine, remember that titration was a key step in the quality assurance of that nectar.

But it's not as if enologists only run titrations. They do bad-ass things like retrieve samples from barrels. Not bad-ass, you say? Have you ever seen a barrel room at a winery? Or a cave? Here, let me refresh your memory:

Figure 2. A barrel room. Notice how tall the man in the background

is, compared to the barrels.

How, then, is taking samples bad-ass? Well, since OSHA could potentially read his post, I'll put it this way: we TOTALLY use ladders. Got it? LADDERS. If, however, someone were to not use a ladder, though, I bet a few years of rock climbing experience would come in pretty handy. Just sayin'. I bet it would.

In all seriousness, though, I wouldn't do anything that I wasn't comfortable with, or that I felt was unnecessarily dangerous. Neither I, nor the winery, nor any of my loved ones, would want me to do so. I like the direction my life's headed, so I don't want it to end prematurely. And besides, the smell of the barrel rooms is incredible. The smell of new French oak is a lovely bouquet of vanilla and wood; add to that the aromas of the wines when you remove samples, and you've got a room that will motivate you to stay alive for, just to smell it again. It's intoxicating, I believe one could say.

Anywho, that's Day Four. Presumably, that's also much of the rest of my Days, too. I guess after this post, I may want to abandon that system of nomenclature. We'll see, though. On second thought, tomorrow's post might get a special title anyway. Tomorrow, we're tasting the entire 2008 line, then having a staff BBQ. I foresee epic taste bud shock. Perhaps even a mild religious experience. Rest assured, though: if I see God in a Pinot, I'll report it here.

Day Three: I Can Drive a Tractor

Well, I guess I'm a farmer now. Or something.

In addition to various other trainings today (mostly safety protocol), I learned how to drive a tractor. I was told that only under emergency circumstances (the entire crush/press crew dying) would I have to drive it. But, wineries being dangerous places, my moment to shine may come. It wouldn't be very exciting, though. I'd just drive the tractor slowly through the vineyard and spread whatever's left of the grapes after pressing. The buzzword for this type of manure is "biodynamic".

Tractor training aside, it was more of the same today. Tons of fermentation tank cleaning, much labor, and enormous quantities of water consumed to combat the ridiculous heat. We did get a break this morning for respirator fitting, which was neat. The respirators are a necessary piece of equipment for sulfuring. Interestingly enough, the masks themselves and the screw-on cartridges are black. You know what this means? It's a free pass to walk around talking like Darth Vader. Absolutely.

So that was Day Three. Not as exciting as the first few days; but then, the novelty of the chores has worn off. Now they are just chores. Tomorrow should be nice and fresh again, though, since I'm going to be in the laboratory, assisting the enology (wine science) intern. That reminds me, too: there's a funny story about my laboratory schedule for the harvest. But I won't tell it now. I'll save it for tomorrow.

Day Two: The Cleaning Begins

Let's be honest here. Cleaning isn't the most fun anybody's ever had. But it has to be done, right? Right. Especially when you're going to be making expensive wines in the tanks that are being cleaned.

Today, we were assigned our first real tasks: clean as many of the fermentation tanks as you possibly can. When I say "fermentation tanks", what I mean is this:

Hint: Don't look for me in that photo. That's from last vintage (I think).

See the enormous metal thing that ten people are standing in? Yup. That's an open-top fermentation tank. It holds 1,027 gallons. It has to be completely sterilized before any fruit, juice, or wine can even touch it. That tank right there? It's just one of 60 that we, the interns, get to clean before fruit arrives. And by "clean" I mean "clean five times each, with a wide variety of chemicals". So, how many did a team of 6 interns manage to clean today? About 15. Maybe only 12 or so. It's really slow going. But let me also stress that those tanks are clean when we're done with them. Also keep in mind that it took us all day for such a small number of bins because, well, we had to get our forklift trainings in, as well as move some barrels around (manually), which ate up a couple of hours. Oh, and speaking of forklifts.

The 2010 Forklift Games will have to wait. Something about safety hazards and management being around during the day. Ah well. At least we got some solid practice in on the machines. Which leads me to the first big proclamation of the internship: I can operate a forklift! It's kinda neat, just because it's heavy machinery. But I think the coolest part is that while operating it, you're moving several tons of stuff without breaking a sweat. That's pretty cool.

Well, I don't really have any more to report from Day Two, other than, "I am completely exhausted." So there you have it. We did stuff, and I'm tired. But, to be sure, I am satisfied with having accomplished a lot today. We're definitely making huge strides in being able to process fruit when it comes in.

Day One: No Forklifts Yet

Day One has come and gone, and all I have to say is this: tomorrow is going to rock.

Today, we fulfilled our written forklift training requirements (an exam), and tomorrow we will fulfill the other (read: bad-ass) part: the hands-on test. I'm not entirely sure what this will entail. Realistically, probably driving around, backing up, raising and lowering the forks, tilting the load center, maneuvering over inclines, and practicing with some pallets/barrels. Ideally, you know what we'd do?

Race. And not just drag-style. Oh, no.

We'd tear-ass up and down inclines. We'd slalom. We'd have events for speed and events for skill. Who can do the fastest lap around the facility? Who cares?! The real champ is the person who can do it fastest with a barrel on the forks. This would not only give the staff a good gauge of who's mastered the equipment (and is therefore prepared for the break-neck pace of harvest), but would also create a handy hierarchy among the interns. If there's one lesson we should all learn from the stooges on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, it's that the ranking system rules.

I know what some of you are thinking. "But, Gordon, what about those poor folks from the southern hemisphere? They're used to driving on the opposite side of the road!" Not a problem! The forklifts are single-person vehicles, with the steering wheel and seat centered--so there's no hemisphere bias! On that note: let the games begin.

Seriously, though, tomorrow is definitely going to be more interesting than today. And that's not to say that today was boring, because it certainly wasn't. We (the interns) got to mingle, get to know each other a little bit, get an idea of who's worked where in the industry. We have two Aussies, a South African, a German, and a whole mess of Americans. We took a few tours of the facilities: a general, a safety, a detailed equipment, and one of the new multi-million dollar facility that's down the road from the winery. (For those who didn't see the link I posted on Facebook a while back, here is Wine Spectator's write-up about the new facility.)

What consumed a solid half (if not more) of our day, though, was paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. But that's to be expected, especially at a place a dangerous as a winery. And, wow, did I mention how dangerous wineries are? I won't go into details, because it's not nice to worry people from afar (especially at the height of fire/earthquake/rapture season!), but... I mean, goddamn. The good news is that common sense and keeping one's senses about them will prevent damn near all accidents and injuries. For example: don't stick your head into a tank filled with carbon dioxide; don't stick your hand into running equipment; don't knock over compressed gas cylinders; and (as if it even needs to be said) don't race forklifts without fastening your seatbelt. You get the idea.

For anyone wondering what the 2010 vintage is like here in NorCal, I direct your query to one Mr. Ruggles, below.

Figure 1. "Erh?"

Plain and simple, it's a little wonky. This has been one of the coldest (not even cool, but straight-up cold at night) summers on record. Obviously, some appellations (or grape-growing regions, for you non-wine folks) are warmer and sunnier than others, but by and large this is a chilly, overcast summer. The marine layer hasn't burned off before 11am or noon--until, actually, today. On my drive to the winery this morning (at 7:30), the sun was shining bright and warm, despite the temperature hovering around 55. According to the folks at the winery, this is the first day in well over a month that that's happened. Temperatures today were quite toasty, hitting well into the 80s. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot (near 100 in places), with Wednesday staying warm, too. Hopefully, this will boost sugar production among the grapes and push harvest a few days forward from its already-late projected start. Late or not, though, the fruit is (mostly) looking good. When the wines get made (eventually), they should be palatable at the very least. And in case you're asking, "Just how late is late?" On this day last year, they were harvesting grapes. This year, we're about two weeks away.

So what does this mean for we interns? It means downtime. We'll finish our training this week, and then get scheduled for different shifts during the slow weeks before harvest begins in earnest. At some point this week (I forget exactly when), we will taste the entire 2008 line from Williams Selyem. To that, I only have one word: glory. More glory than you can shake a Hypnotoad at. We'll also learn how to properly clean, operate, and re-clean all of the necessary equipment. Then we will clean. And in between cleanings, we will clean other things. Then we will return to the things we were previously cleaning and clean them again. See a pattern here? This is why I bought expensive work clothes made predominantly of synthetic fabrics: so they will dry quickly.

Anyway, that was Day One. It was a good time, and I definitely foresee a fun, exhausting, educational, and delicious few months here. If, in the process, I can put on a good 10 pounds of muscle, I'll leave here a very happy camper. Also, a top 3 ranking in the 2010 Forklift Games would be pretty sweet. I'll keep you posted on that.

Important Update: I failed to mention that I was so excited this morning, I forgot to eat breakfast. Yup. And it's not like I left it sitting on the counter as I waltzed out the door in my fancy steel-toed boots. I didn't even make it. I realized this halfway to the winery, at which point I just tore into the apple that was supposed to accompany my lunch. This won't happen again.

Success

Well, here I am.

After driving nearly 4,000 miles over two weeks, I'm in Healdsburg, the heart of the Russian River Valley. It's a hell of a luxury to not be moving right now. Two weeks at 80 miles per hour can really throw you for a loop. The solid ground almost requires readjustment. Charlotte and I made a great tour of the trip, stopping to see the sights along the way. Among them: the Blue Hole, Albuquerque (and its terrible, terrible wines), Santa Fe, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, the Mojave Desert (not by choice), Santa Barbara, Solvang, the Pacific Coast Highway, Napa and Sonoma (more on them below), the Central Valley (geography's analog to boredom), Los Angeles, Disneyland, Orange County, and, finally, USC, where I helped the Wyatts trade one daughter for another.

The trip was expensive, but some great friends helped lighten the financial burden of lodging in some towns, as well as showing me and Char a fun time. Thanks go out to cousin Dai, Lisa G., and the Zechs. Much appreciated!

When we arrived in the Bay Area, we had several days scheduled for exploring Wine Country. We ended up with two days of Napa and one day of Sonoma. Here's a list of wineries we tasted at (in order): Grgich Hills, Robert Mondavi (visited, didn't taste), Domaine Carneros, Bell, Silverado, Robert Sinskey, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Darioush, Moshin, Rochioli, Sbragia, Ferrari-Carano, and Seghesio. During our tasting at Grgich Hills, I had mentioned to the tasting room host that we carried several of their wines at Midtown. She asked me if I had a business card, to which I responded something along the lines of, "Hell no! I'm just a salesman." She then informed me that if I had had a business card, then she could have comped our tasting fees, since I was "in the industry". (In the end, she did, anyway.) This is how I came to learn about the most glorious thing in the entire world of wine: the Industry Discount. Apparently, if you're "in", wineries give you enormous discounts (up to 40%) on their wines, as well as free tastings for you and a plus-one. When Charlotte and I discovered this, it was akin to learning that we had superpowers.

It. Was. Awesome.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by it, though, since I worked the retail side of the biz. I was the guy on the floor selling their wines to the masses. I was one of the most important people in the world to them. Why the hell wouldn't they comp my tastings? Anyway, the Industry Discount kicks ass. The only downside is that Charlotte and I would have to find creative ways to broach the subject of my being a salesman, since I didn't have a business card to present, which is the usual form of ID that gets one the other ID. In any case, this amounted to three days of visiting wineries, chatting up tasting room staffers, meeting winemakers (I'm lookin' at you, Bell), and generally making connections in the California wine scene. Now that I'm in Healdsburg, actually, I'm still continuing to network--and my internship hasn't even begun yet! In the past two days, I have bumped into a few people who know winemakers, vineyard owners, etc., and have offered to introduce me to them. Turns out that this is a town where everybody knows somebody (or many somebodies) in the biz.

Anyway, here I am, moved into my new place in the heart of the Russian River Valley. My internship begins Monday. My shopping is complete. I have my supplies. I'm chomping at the bit, can't wait to get started. It's exciting to begin a project (a career!) that I'm actually passionate about. To be honest, I'm still a little anxious about it, about whether or not this is "the path" for me. There are looming insecurities that cause me to wonder if this is going to be "just another graduate school". Then I remember how much I love learning about wine, talking about wine, and (most importantly) drinking wine, and all of those insecurities fall away.

I guess whatever happens over the next three months, I will consider the internship a success. If I have a positive experience that leads to a career in winemaking, awesome. If I discover that this just isn't a career for me, then I move on to something else, in typical 20-something fashion. Either way, all I have to do is show up and do the work. Luckily, I am a student of the Woody Allen School of Success.