So as crazy as it may seem this early in the year, the vintage at Casella Wines is wrapping up.  A large percentage of the seasonal workers are going to be cut this Thursday and it’s time to start looking forward to what comes next.

This isn’t really relevant, but it’s pretty. Enjoy!

As a child of the 90’s, Semisonic got to bring all the periods of my life to their poetic conclusions.  This is no exception.  However, as I get ready to move forward from 3 and a half months of working in the massive wine factory that is Casella’s, I have to look back and reflect on what I learned.

Besides getting more comfortable in a winery environment after graduating from school, dreaming about hoses, pump-overs and various forms of heavy equipment; I’ve learned a lot about acid, alcohols, R-P, pressing methods/seeds, the Australian palate, the Italian palate, the flavor dramas of fermentation and also the nature of rot.  I’ve also had my nose buried in Fugelsang’s Wine Analysis and Production (which is about as an exciting a read as the Ohio state legal code, but probably the best educational text I’ve read in terms of amount and delivery of information) and have emerged from it with lots of fun facts about how to better make wine.  These things have all inspired new topics, of which you will get to see shortly.  In the meantime, I have some traveling to do.  As I leave Australia, I get to see the wonderful Margaret Mann in Japan, (hopefully) the musical Gregor Penczek and Martin Skutzik in Thailand and the existential Alwyn Loh in Singapore.  Can’t wait.  Talk to you soon.