Sanitizing!

Sanitizing sanitizing sanitizing. So I’m thinking I know a little about this, have read about how and why it is supremely important, the Australians are OCD about it, what happens to wine if it’s not done properly, what chemical reactions and yeasty beasties take over, how (in some opinions) over sanitizing is the cause of sterile wines that have no character, etc on and on.

OK first of all, the tank is massive and “cleaning” it is a miniscule word in comparison to the enormity of the task. For a start more equipment that goes into “stud” category: a pump that runs on 240V of electricity yet must be safe around thousands of gallons of water, clamps, reducers, wrenches, large hoses that feel like they’re made of lead, really tall ladders, tank cleaner, citric acid, industrial strength buckets. And don’t forget your waterproof boots. I broke 3 nails just trying to get the clamps attached to the hoses. Oh an important detail, make sure you’ve got the hoses going the right way otherwise you’re sucking air through the pump and then you’ve got a big problem. Gilles has matter-of-factly warned me not to “fuck his pump”.

(top to bottom - attaching hose to pump, tank being sanitized, the hose jungle with water and electricity thrown in for fun)




OK can we talk about the ladder for a minute. I’ve hiked up 14,000-foot mountains without a problem, but for some reason scaling this ladder upside the tank makes my knees go all collywobbles. It feels like the damn thing is going to play a game of trust with me on it. I wonder if anyone’s ever peed their pants up there.


Anyway, climb up the ladder using one hand because the other is holding the hose, breathe, put the hose down through the top door peering down to make sure it's about 2 feet in, breathe, tie the garbage bag around the gapped door so that water isn't spraying all over the cellar, unfold your torso to scale back down, don't throw up. The illogicalness of how scary this feels just makes it worse. Why am I having such a hard time with this ladder business? Run water through, drain the tank, close the valves and pump tank cleaner through for 10 minutes, drain and rinse again, pump citric acid through for 10 minutes, drain and rinse again, multiple trips to the water faucet and GALLONS of water. Gilles tells me that for every gallon of wine made, at least 3 gallons of water is used! Now why did he tell me that? Doesn’t he know my guilt meter is calibrated to the Jewish metric system!

Well I feel a little less guilty about the leaky faucet in my bathtub that I almost broke with my pliers. I ended up with a full on stream instead of a harmless drip. I now understand why a little knowledge can be dangerous. Using wrenches at work does not automatically transmutate one into a plumber. But I had fun trying.

Finally deconstruct everything and dry yourself off. And that’s the condensed version. We run through it a few times until I can do one on my own from start to finish. I leave feeling pretty badass.

Me? On a Forklift?

When I pull up there’s a massive truck blocking the driveway – new barrels being delivered! Gilles tells me to put my coffee down and jump on the forklift so he can hoist me up to help load the barrels onto the pallet. Uh, so good morning. We unload 10 and the driver heads on down the road to another winery, says it’s a full day.



Gilles explains that he buys barrels from different tonneliers for the different flavors they impart to the wine. Barrel making is a highly involved and complicated craft and barrel types are intensely regionalized in France (what isn't?). But for our purposes it’s primarily about the type of wood (French oak is most common and desired), how the wood is cut (American oak is much less porous than French and is sawn rather hand split) and the level of toast it is given. Toasting the inside of a barrel alters the chemical composition of the wood providing a buffer between the alcohol and the tannins in the wood. The heavier the toast, the less tannic the wine. So for instance a Cabernet could stand up to, and possibly even benefit from heavier tannin infusion - a lighter toast. But a Pinot Noir being more delicate would be overwhelmed by heavy tannins meaning more buffer is preferred - heavy toast.

OK next it’s forklift lesson time for Subi! Not only did I learn how to drive the thing, I also moved FULL barrels and stacked THREE high! (I was so proud of my first baby stack, check it out!)

What a rush! Normally he doesn’t allow anyone close to the barrels their first time on a forklift, but I take to it naturally. Not sure what that says about me, but I feel like a stud. Precise maneuvers like stacking required a lot of finesse. You have to be able move the thing ONE INCH to stack accurately! Also the space is cramped and your forks can do thousands of dollars worth of damage in one small turn. There are a ton of things to remember – the expensive fermentation tank to your southeast, the rope to your northwest that could pull down the tent roof, the slope that you’re reversing onto meaning that your load has to be angled, keeping your load low for center of gravity while maneuvering, and of course the owner’s car not too far away. Oh and most importantly, remembering to breathe.

Day 2

When I show up, I'm told that we’re heading to the fields to get samples. I’m conjuring laboratories, chemicals and glass vials for later. Excited! He sends me off with Eberardo. His car is a massive metal 1970s something with house speakers in the back window and a passenger door that can only be opened from the outside with the key, meaning ignition off and him walking around to let me out. I take a seat on the furry animal print blanket, he locks me in and we head out to the sound of salsa.


We each have a plastic bucket, a pair of gloves, garden clippers and a large rusty scale. Eberardo shows me how to clear a plant – two clusters per shoot in the bucket and the rest on the ground. If there are any “wings” leftover from where the field guys have come through and pruned, cut them as well. He tells me to watch him closely first. Yeah yeah let me at it, me and Einstein go way back. In order to figure out what needs to be cut, first I have to figure out which shoot goes to which vine. Listen it’s more challenging than it looks. I hear the creak of the scale, once, twice… he’s flying. OK I need to speed it up, carry my weight so to speak, haha. Pressure is building. Why is this taking me so long? I really suck. The call of the dirt my ass…

When Eberardo comes to check on me, I’m buried torso-deep in a vine, stalking its meandering with stealth so that I can make sure I do this right! He taps me on the shoulder, and when I remove myself from the hunt down, he swipes an entire patch in an Edward Scissorhands stroke, removing all the leaves. “So you can looking better at the plant,” he deadpans. I tell him that assaulting the precious old-vine pinot was my next idea, I just needed to get comfortable. He nods a laugh and heads back to his patch of dirt. Show off!

So after you’ve cleared a plant, you take your bucket to the scales and write down the number of clusters and weight. “What do we put the grapes to take back for sampling?” I ask. He tosses the bucket’s contents onto the ground. “Now we taking the next one,” he says. “These no lab samples.” Uhm excuse me?! We have a ton of plots to do and 10 plants have to be cleared from each plot. That’s a lot of grapes for bird feed and fertilizer! “Isn’t that kind of wasteful?” I ask. He shrugs and tells me he’s already done it twice this season. “How else knowing how much each plot is giving.” The “obviously” is implied, he’s too much of a gentlemen to intentionally make me feel stupid. He just leaves it to me and cashes in on the free amusement.

He tells me that sometimes Gilles will give the order to go out drop a ton of fruit. Right. So that would be the pruning I’ve read so much about. It’s done for different reasons and at different times in the season depending on weather conditions and other factors. The purpose is allowing the vine to send all its nourishment to the remaining clusters for better ripening. So a few plants here and there for sampling is a drop in the bucket. Oh the puns they are a flowin... OK back to work. I start getting the hang of it when the sun comes out. I look around at the vineyards and think I’m on a movie set. Look at me in my new life! Here I am on the land, working with my hands. I tear off my t-shirt, chuffed at how prepared I am for wearing a sports tank top under my t-shirt.




At noon, he asks if I brought my lunch. Of course, it’s in the car along with my water and wallet. So much for being prepared. We can’t go all the way to the winery and back in a half hour and still have time to eat. You mean we’re doing this again this afternoon?! Uhm my back is starting to hurt, fun meter getting a little low. Without batting an eye he asks me if I like Chinese and graciously buys my lunch explaining that it can take a few days to collect all the samples! He's incredibly sweet and I find it comical that he has to come around to let me in and out of the car every time we stop – I’m feeling like one of the guys rather than a “lady” – dirt all over my jeans, sweat all over my body and slightly funky. And the best is that he’s about my height, if not shorter! This is a scene from an indy movie.

As we eat in the field, he tells me stories about Mexico and arriving here without a word of English. Now he owns a house and has a family. In the afternoon he has to call one of the field guys over on a truck with water so that I don’t pass out. Apparently he never gets thirsty and his back doesn’t hurt. He also wears a long sleeve shirt and hat. By end of the day, I’m sunburnt, dehydrated, exhausted and my lower back is screaming obscenities! When we get back, Gilles glances at the chicken scratch we’ve collected all day and says he likes the numbers. I’m too tired to ask for more of an explanation. And I think "a little advance warning for what lie ahead today would have been nice Sir." I can’t imagine how long this takes one person!

I head straight for the hot tub and can’t help but wonder what Eberardo’s night looks like. He doesn’t drink wine, only Tequila. His wife has two daughters from a previous marriage who he is raising as his own, and one is in the hospital with cancer. He told me that he takes them to his brother’s farm and makes them kill a chicken, shows them how to make their own tortillas “so they know everything doesn’t come from a store,” teaches them to know what time it is based on the sun’s position, and also checks their homework with an iron hand. “They must know many things. Who knows if I coming home at night.” I sip the Barbera I’ve opened, analyzing the vintage, the alcohol, the fruit etc, trying to decipher all the factors that make up the story of this bottle of wine. I have the sense that so far I’ve really only read the front cover, the foreward and the introduction. I’m only just beginning the guts. I’m humbly looking forward to the juicier chapters of wine's true story and what it has to teach me.

Day 1

A tour through the vineyards. This meant following a map. Already I’m lost! You know me and my spatial issues. Along with that, Gilles (pronounced Jeel) my boss and winemaker is really tough to follow, thickest French accent I’ve ever heard. He’s actually subtitled on the winery website! www.coopermountainwine.com. He’s one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a long time. He’s served time in the French Army, training missions in the Pyrenees Mountains, had polio as a kid, is borderline deaf, flies planes, is geekily intelligent, weaves philosophy into discussions about engineering, politics or life in America, has AUTHENTIC passion for winemaking complete with total irreverence for the snob factor, which he thinks is absurd (“wtf is a tasting note, blueberry/blackberry etc”), is a self-proclaimed asshole and is happy if someone doesn’t like his wine for a “reason”, it means he’s making something interesting rather than trying to follow a trend. What I really like is his multifaceted intelligence, it’s not compartmentalized or specialized, is adaptable, thinks through something with authenticity and agility. He’s completely blunt and down-to-earth, but doesn’t lack empathy. I’m driving through the vineyards with the winemaker on a little 4 wheeler toy thingy! I want to clap my hands, squeal, jump up and down, kiss the grapes – anything other than sit here like an adult as he shows me which plot is growing pinot gris, pinot noir, chardonnay etc. I’m here! I did it!

Later I’m given the responsibility of filling up barrels with water. This “seasons” the wood allowing it to expand and checks for leaks before they get filled up with rotting grape juice. The barrels sit for 3 days. This nail-biting job meant I was in charge of overseeing TWO hoses at a time. Phew! It takes forever to fill all the barrels, but I have this incredible view of wine country and Chehalem Hill. Well actually it’s Chehalem Mountain but I have hard time calling it that after hanging out in the Rockies. My first glimpse of what Gilles was talking about when he said I may be bored at times.

I’ve got nothing material to say about my first day. Other than it feels good to be going to work in old jeans, hiking boots, no makeup and no small talk. I have a strange sensation that I finally found my calling and my dirt. The Pacific NW is where I’m meant to be and wine is what I’m meant to be doing (I think). I have nothing external or concrete to base this on, it’s all gut, a subtle sense and hard to trust. I’m definitely a little freaked out, but it feels more secure than anything else I’ve done so far. And the strangest most surprising thing I’ve been feeling is guilt, like I don’t deserve to follow this dream. Get down to business, get a real job and suffer through, this is frivolous and irresponsible… It goes deeper than money. Somehow I think it’s about not feeling like I have a right to live into my purpose and my joy. The ingrained message of not being worthy, the belief of which, I think hinders all women to some degree.