All Things Come to an End

Today was my last week at Rochioli... I am exhausted.  My hands are torn to shreds and my shoulder is a little screwed up from falling out of the grape press awkwardly.  My body is drained but also ripped, kind of like Gerald Butler in the movie 300, don't laugh, I'm serious.  I can roll tractor tires with one arm, I can also throw a baseball exactly one mile, no joke, I can bench press a Pinto (Ford Pinto).  I had a lot of fun doing this, at times it wasn't fun when I was actually working because of the sheer effort put into making a great wine.  After work I always had a sense of accomplishment and wanting to go back the next day even though my body was saying why do you want to do this, you're nuts. Even though it was hard, I am thinking I will come back next year depending on my employment situation.  I want to do it again to really focus more on the next level of wine making.  I have the basics down, the machinery down, and for next year I really want to take my understanding to the next level.

My last day at the winery consisted of me washing barrels!  Its not very exciting but none the less part of making wine.  Wine making has to be extremely clean, everything you touch and use has to be spotless.  As one can imagine the least fun part of making wine is cleaning everything after you have used it!  Not fun!

 
After the uneventful day of washing barrels my last night at Bruce's was very eventful.  Bruce' wife got a new job at Wilson Winery (Wilson Winery) as, from what I understand, the event planner there.  She was doing an event for this coming weekend where their Zinfandels will be on display for their wine club members also including a dinner.  So we tasted through their Zins (I think it was 7 of them) with Bruce, his wife, myself, and two local chefs.  We took tasting notes and ranked them best on our own feeling on the wines.  After that we all started yelling out what would go good with the different wines.  Sort of a collaborative conversation about the wines and how we feel about them.  It was so cool!  To hear professionals in the trade just fire out what they are tasting in the wine and also what will go good with it.  Food and Wine!!!  The best pairing on earth!  After the tasting we say down for dinner.  A note on the Wilson Wines, yes they were good, very good, some better than others of course but the were for sure top notch for the price point.  I enjoyed the Mollys Vineyard Zin and the Sawyer Zin, the Sawyer being more representative of a "true zin" and Molly's being a little different, with a blend of 5% Petite Sirah.  In the end it was a great night shared with friends and it give me the insight into how wine and food pairings work!

So what is next you ask?
I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, why?  To spend time with my girlfriend, we haven't seen each other in 2 months!!!  Secondarily, I will be writing my business plan, drinking wine (I sent a case and a half here!!!), sharing that wine with the great people of Minnesota and also freezing my bum off!  I think it was a high of 40 degrees here today!  Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas I will head to back to California refreshed, regrouped, refocused, reinvented, reinvigorated, re....etc... you get the point.  At that time I will look for a new job in the industry.  In March 2010, I will be enrolling in the CIA's Wine Immersion Program, assuming I can scrap together the money, in June I will be heading to France  for who knows how long with some great people, including future wine maker, vineyard rodent, M.G. Murawski.        

In closing, I read an article about this company, Tasting Room.  Its basically a way where instead of buying a full bottle of wine that you've never had, you can buy these tasting sample packages.  Pretty cool!  I haven't bought anything from them yet..... Tasting Room (Tasting Room).  If you order from here please let me know how it went.  I am unemployed again... so it will be awhile before I try out the website ha! 

In the words of Jay-Z.... I'm on to the next one, on to the next!