'Moving Day'

Friday was a rough day. We all know the pleasure of carrying a case of wine, it's a little heavy for some, not at all for others and worth making somebody else do it for the wise and wimpy. One thing that makes it all worthwhile is knowing that once you get that wine to its final resting place, the pleasure of drinking it is the only 'work' left. Unfortunately, when you know that you will never be swirling, smelling, and swallowing the contents, the boxes tend to get just a little bit heavier. When you multiply that by 8 hours and stairs, one starts appreciating inventions like the elevator and escalator with newfound respect. What started as a nice morning workout turned into an intense full day work out as we not only loaded two pallets of wine (56 cases each) but also re-boxed many others, organized the wine library (which meant more bending, lifting, opening, marking, sliding, and cursing) and then stored the tens of cases that would need to be relabelled at some point in the future. What I took away from the situation was essential importance of taking short 2 min. mate breaks, thinking twice so that you only have to move once, and the handiness of a nice fat sharpie to negate any confusion. More importantly, however, was that I worked with Bernardo (assistant winemaker) and Alberto (the rock that gets things done around here) throughout the day and we all get along really well. I think I impressed them with my mate-drinking-slang-using-joke-administering abilities and they seemed to have accepted me as an equal as opposed to just another American intern.

Not a very impressive picture, but I now have a new appreciation for yet another step in the vineyard to wine glass process.