One Day in the Life of a Cellar Rat (Temp)

You know how they say you can’t really understand the ins and outs of winemaking until you’ve walked a mile in an underground cellar, surrounded by 3000 gallon holding tanks and palettes of oak barrels - what, you’ve never heard this? Well, it’s true, because no matter how much you read about the winemaking process, or hear winemakers talk about their craft during barrel-tasting weekend, you cannot appreciate the art and science that is winemaking until you’ve experienced it firsthand. This is why, come end-of-summer, so many devoted wine geeks sign up to work crush at a winery. And this is why I ended up at a certain small-scale winery one recent Friday morning.

Like almost every other California winery, this particular establishment brings on extra help at harvest time to sort grapes, hook up hoses, pump juice, sanitize equipment, and a hundred other tasks that go along with turning this year’s grape crop into fermenting juice. And while wineries often prefer to hire people who’ve had previous cellar experience (not to mention people who are licensed drivers of forklifts), once in a while they take pity on an overly eager wine fan who just wants to see how it’s all done.

Mid July is actually a bit early for a harvest worker to get called in to the cellar. The grapes are still on the vine, and crush won’t begin until after harvest, which won’t be for at least a few more weeks. But the winery owners were out of town on a summer holiday, and the assistant winemaker needed some help as he finished up his blending tasks prior to bottling their upcoming release. So he called me in.