First Solo Flight

"It takes a lot of beer to make wine."

- Every winemaker ever

It's so true. So very, very true. After a long, hard-fought day at a winery--moving heavy objects across an estate, cleaning them, moving them back again, repeating the sequence, making sure yeast and malo cultures are alive and well, processing/analyzing vineyard samples, analyzing juice/fermentation samples, and playing a midday cricket game--what beverage do you think winemakers/interns turn to for relaxation, rejuvenation, and gaseous regurgitation? Yup. Beer. It's delicious, it's bubbly, and it's cold. And it contains smaller quantities of alcohol than wine, so you can drink more cold, bubbly, tasty stuff before it hits you. Really, when you get right down to it, it's the perfect relaxation beverage for the working man.

Figure 1. Ommegang Abbey Ale, served in a goblet glass,

perfect for releasing the abbey ale's rich aromas, as well as

handling its traditionally massive head.

Goblet glass in hand (well, on the table, readily available to me), I can now relax and recount the events of my first solo flight. That is to say: I ran the laboratory on my own today, since my mentor had the day off.

My first day working solo in the lab was (by design) just more of the same, really. More vineyard samples came in, so I ran the usual Brix (sugar), pH, and TA (titratable acids) on them. I checked the malic acid levels on the malolactic culture. I set up a cork trial. I helped grow the yeast culture so that it will be ready to pitch into some Pinot juice starting tomorrow. The usual. Really, once I found my bearings this morning (bright and early at 7:00), it was smooth sailing. All these procedures are burned into my mind at this point. The only trick is not zoning out and relying on autopilot; therein the errors lie. If I keep my focus on the task at hand (however familiar), and make sure I have something to do at any given minute (have to wait while a sample reacts? Time to clean glassware!), then I'm set.

That's really all there is to report today. I did the usual stuff, but on my own for the first time. And no mistakes were made! ... That I know of, or that really matter, since the numbers all worked out today.