Interlude: Internship Images

I just finished my 7th consecutive day of work, with days averaging about between 10 and 11 hours. I'm tired. Physically and mentally. It looks like I'll have a day off on either Wednesday or Thursday. I just don't have the concentration or energy at this point to write an entry, not until I have a day off. So, in lieu of a post, here are some random images from the last week.

Figure 1. There is an ongoing competition to see who can "dig out"

a fermentation tank the fastest. As you can see, the stakes are high.

This shit is real.

Figure 2. Super Harvest Moon setting below the hills of the

Russian River Valley, along Westside Road, just west of Healdsburg.

Figure 3. Fruit being dumped into a fermentation tank. After it's all

in there (between 10 and 20 bins like this one), it's raked flat, covered

with dry ice pellets and a tarp, and left to sit for several days before

fermentation is started, so as to extract good color.

Figure 4. The view from atop a tank that I was gassing with argon gas

(to displace oxygen). That's the Allen vineyard, source of some great Pinot.

Figure 5. Another view from atop the same tank. Those are all

fermentation tanks. The platform there is actually on wheels, so it

can roll over any tanks on that side of the fermentation pad, to make

punchdowns easier on us interns.

Figure 6. Filling barrels in the cellar, post-press. This is wine, folks.

Figure 7. An enormous slug! Found it oozing around the entrance

to the fermentation room. I moved it to safety.

Figure 8. Some kind of really pretty moth that I found.