Roaring 40s

There is a pizza place in Angaston that everyone "roars" about, Roaring 40s.  Though I had been here for 2 months, I had still not made it up there.  So Carissa and I decided to be active and bike to Angaston and reward ourselves with this amazing pizza.

There is a bike path from Nuri to Angaston so the bike should not have been that bad; just 6 kilometers.  Well, it would not have been that bad, BUT Carissa's back tire went completely flat 2 kilometers into it.  But pizza...so we kept trekking via foot.  Carissa pushed her bike while I rode very slowly on mine.  The bike path is very nice, so taking it slowly was not too much of a burden.  There were also no cars to get mad at us, or try to run us over, so that was another plus.

Finally, we make it to the pizza place and order our nom.com pizzas.  At this point we needed to find a way to get home, or at least to get Carissa home.  Luckily, I forgot my phone at home and Carissa's phone was out of credit.  So we had to ask to borrow the restaurants phone. There has been one common thing I have found in the Australians I have met, they are all very generous.  So, naturally, the worker just offered us to use their phone to call a friend to save us.  We called my boss Bec for a ride to Nuri.  She did not hesitate to come and get us.  She did arrive with her new (sexy) car, but it was too small for 2 bikes.  So she drove back to her hour to get a bigger car, didn't find the keys to it, and came back to get us (minus the bikes).  The restaurant let us store our bikes in their back shed until the next day when Bec's boyfriend Hilly could pick them up! Why is everyone so nice!!??!?? Carissa and I were the most epic stranded tourists and all the Aussies were pleased to help us out.  An almost disaster turned out to be nothing but a tuesday night.

Back to the pizza...IT WAS SO GOOD! I got a butternut squash, scallion, fetta and arugula pizza on thick crust.  It reminded me of my dad's pizza.  It was not as good as Jeff's, but it was up there.  I wanted to eat the whole thing, but I was stuffed after half of it.  Can you say left overs?

St. Hallett Permanents

This picture is ridiculous, but hilarious.  I was laughing for 10 minutes when I first saw it. Some of the people look like they are almost in their natural setting, while others look a little…off.  

So the guy in the back on the left is Justin.  He is the "barrel king" of the winery.  If you need to find a barrel, you ask Justin.  The guy in front of him is Chris Rodgers, the viticulturist.  The gal in the front middle is Kat.  She is the assistant winemaker.  She used to be the lab manager, so she helps us out sometimes with lab questions.  Behind Kat is Greg.  He is the cellar manager for the day shift.  I don't work with him, but everyone loves him.  He is such a hard worker and is always running around.  We do not know how he just goes, and goes, and goes! The very back on the right is Toby, the head winemaker.  I think his picture is the funniest of the bunch.  The mustache is questionable hair or wine.  He is always walking around with wine somewhere on his face, so I would not put it past him.  In front of Toby is Shelley, another winemaker. She focuses on the white wines and also played basketball with me.  Lastly, there is Jeremy, aka Jez.  I guess when Australians give nicknames they add a "z" at the end.  So I would be Kaz? But so would Carissa, so I don't know.  It's an Oz thing.  Jez is another winemaker like Shelley.  He rides on a little purple bike around the winery all the time.  Sometimes I think I see a midget glide by the lab windows, but then I realize it is just Jez, on his bike.  

But that is part of the permanent crew, more so the people in the offices.  They are all great people, and naturally have to be cool since this picture is AWESOME.  

People I think look too natural in this picture…Jez, Greg and Justin.  Sorry about it.  

Intern Intermission

I meant to post this about two weeks ago... whoops.

Harvest has been going strong for 4 or 5 weeks so the night and the day shift have been apart for most of that (sad face). Today, after work, we decided to get together and go bowling! Yes, the small town of Tanunda has a bowling alley that also has a mini golf course.  

I know, in the past, these two activities have not been my strong point, but new place, new beginnings…maybe.  Bowling started usually, gutter balls, hitting one or two pins.  But by the end of the game I had 117 points, I think it was tied for 4th out of 8.  It was also the second time ever I got into triple digits.  The second game I showed that I have no longevity.  My fingers were tired somehow so I would bowl better left handed (yea makes no sense). But I still beat one person, so not last!! YAY!

Mini golf was nothing to really note of.  Again, I didn't lose, but I didn't win.  The only thing notable was how unexciting the course was.  It did not have any mouths to hit into, or ponds to avoid.  The only obstacles were angles…boring.  It made me miss golf land on blossom hill.  At least they have some water and secret holes. 

I still had a lot of fun with everyone.  It was nice to talk to them all again as a whole group!

Quentin (French), Carissa (Washingtonian), Andrea (Italian), Justin (Aussie), Paul (UK), Kaitlyn (me) and Kim (Danish)

Proof I Be-Ballin Hard

My last basketball game! I had to get some proof that I did play. We did not win, but we still had fun and got a good workout in. Did I mention we were down a player, so it was 4 on 5? My legs were sore the next day.

I forgot I was not playing volleyball a few times.

Trying to dribble.

Going for a lay-up ( I missed it.)

Shelley (winemaker), Brie, Me and Gaby (co worker)

Town

In Tanunda, the people refer to Adelaide as "Town".  I don't get why because I would think that "town" refers to the little street of Tanunda, because it is not worthy of the title city, and "city" could refer to Adelaide since it is the biggest thing around here.  But no, Adelaide is town. Stupid. Whatever. 

Anyway, we went to town for the weekend. I stayed in my first hostel too.  I forgot what it was like to be in a room of bunk beds trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake people up.  Freshman year of college was a long time ago now; I think I have lost my skill of being quiet, or lost my indifference to bothering people with cell phone alarms and squeaky beds.  Every noise I made seemed to echo in the room when the people were sleeping.  I could not even unlatch my necklace without stressing that the girl under me was waking up from the sounds.  Then again, she was snoring, so she should have been the one worrying about the other people's lack of sleep. 

Enough of the hostel rant and back to Adelaide.  Well…there isn't much to say about Adelaide.  We just walked around the mall street with stores, bars and restaurants on it.  It was really crowded since it was the last weekend of an event called "Fringe".  I am not sure what the Fringe is, or how to describe it, but it is the only exciting thing that happens in Adelaide I guess all year. So it's a big deal.  The night was ver relaxed just eating and drinking and walking and talking.  It is nice to get out of the small town of Tanunda every now and again.  

Cudlee Koala

This past weekend I only had to work a whopping 5 hours on Saturday.  Granted, I did start at 6:30 am, it felt that I had a full 2 day weekend.  With this new found freedom, a group of us interns decided to go to "town", Adelaide.  To make the trip even more Australian and epic, we also went to see koalas and kangaroos in Cudlee Creek.  

A trip to Australia just does not seem complete without holding or at least seeing a koala.  Us St. Hallett interns, had not had the chance to do this yet, therefore were having an unsatisfactory time in Australia.  We had our fellow locals do some research and a place was found to HOLD koalas! 

Chillin with his homies.

So, I finished work and we were off to find this petting zoo somewhere in Adelaide Hills.  There was six of us, so we had to take two cars.  One car had to stop in Gawler. I was with Brooke and we also had to detour to get stuff from my house, so we decided to meet at this koala place.  Brooke felt that she had looked at her map enough so gave it to Paul, the other car, so they could find it too.  Brooke and I were on our way to the zoo when we reached a Y in the road…left or right? Brooke, being from this area, was the only one who could make an educated guess; we turned left.  Ten or so minutes later, down this very windy road, we find ourselves at a giant rocking horse.  On the plus side, PHOTO OP!, on the other side, we were lost.  Brooke did not memorize the map as well as she thought, so with our electronics and contacts we were able to figure out that we should have turned right at the Y.  To make sure the other car did not make the same mistake, I texted them what not to do.  Thirty seconds after I sent the text, we see Paul drive by us.  Timing.  We pulled over, called them; they turned around and pulled up behind us.  Brooke talks to Paul about where to go and we are off again.  Ten minutes later we are parked outside this cafe, which feels like the middle of no where, contemplating what to do.  No joke, right when Brooke gets out of the car to talk to Paul and admit that we are lost, it starts to rain.  Rain makes situations seem so much more dramatic, be it a happy drama or lost drama.  Now we are searching for these koalas, in the middle of random hills, making twenty 3-point turns trying to find this park, in the rain.  The roads are windy and wet, we have no cell phone service, and it seems the koalas are out of reach…

Kangaroo Whisperer

Thank god they weren't!! We arrived at the park at 1:28 and the koalas came out for holding at 1:30.  Can someone say timing? All of us had huge, genuine smiles on our faces when the koalas finally made it into our arms.  If anyone watched the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon has a "Koala Face".  We all had that "face" on.  To add to the epicness of holding a super cuddly creature, we got to feed and interact with wallabies and kangaroos!  A little intimidating at first, but you warm up to them after a while.  I got some heart melting pictures of Brooke with the animals.  A serious kangaroo whisperer that one is.  

The zoo had an interesting assortment of animals.  There were the typical Australian kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, dingos and emus.  But then there were bats, monkeys, panthers, and camels… We did see a monkey grab some ladies hair and it was hilarious, so I can't bash on the monkeys too much.

Paul, Brooke, Carissa, Me and Kim at the Zoo!

Future Music Festival aka Brofest 2013

A few weeks ago, a coworker (Batesy) told be about this epic music festival coming up in March.  It seemed ages away and since harvest had vamped up soon getting a day off was a possibility.  As the week approached (faster than anticipated), harvest did not slow down as epically as thought and a day off seemed improbable, and most impossible.  Two days before this festival, on a whim, I ask for the day off.  It made sense at that time and then my wish was granted.  A day off.  Monday, no waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning.  I get to go to the concert.  Sadly, Batesy could not get the same leisure as me since she is a permanent and I feel may hold more responsibility at work.  If anyone knows me, planning something this epic, in such short notice is not something I ever do.  I got my ticket for this concert Sunday, less than 24 hours till the first set.  I had no plans on how to get transported from Tanunda to Adelaide, but I worked it out.  I think I have changed if I am able to plan something on such short notice, or I am proving my mother wrong. Who knows, but the festival is on!

The festival was very similar to the other music festivals I have been to before.  A lot of loud music, drunk people, questionable clothing, sunburns etc.  One difference here was the festival was more electronic music and DJs instead of bands.  I did see Fun. who was my summer favorite this past summer! I also got to see Steve Aoki who just runs around the stage the whole time broken up by a few fist pumps.  In all honesty I don't get how DJs have concerts.  A lot of their "music" is done by other artists.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all the DJs but it is different than seeing a band live.  I feel my iPod does a pretty good concert too with DJ music.  Hardwell and Avicii closed out the night.  I loved seeing Levels by Avicii live, but that was the only part of his set that I really liked.  Hardwell kind of stole the show with his remixes.  I am now a Hardwell fan! 

Some other names that were there was Ellie Goulding and Psy (Gangnam Style). I didn't see Gangnam style (damn) but you can't win them all.  

I would like to note that the amount of "bros" at this festival was stupid.  I felt I walked into a gym, with out the equipment.  Every guy was super jacked and tan, which sounds like a good thing, but it wasn't.  They were all just being so bro-ish and now I feel Australians are the ULTIMATE bros. ULTIMATE.  

I did not go to this festival by myself, I went with a fellow co worker, Beau.  He is one of the few non bros in Australia.  He was nice enough to transport me around since I don't have a car; he picked me up and let me drive his car to work at 5 in the morning.  Driving to work in the morning from his house was an adventure in itself.  I was down in Gawler, a place I have only been twice now.  He gives me the keys to the car and I asked "So…how do I get to work?" He was surprised I asked and gave very vague directions… So at 5 in the morning, I am following directions Will emailed me to get me to work.  

First off, starting the car was a challenge.  I put the key into the ignition, turned it, and the alarm went off… great, I woke Beau up, the one thing he asked me NOT to do.  Then I somehow get the car to start, get it into reverse, first gear…I'm off. By the way, this is a manual.  I get to the main road, turn and realize there is NO gas in the car. Now I need to navigate to a gas station, figure out Aussie gas, and get back on route.  Naturally at the gas station I was to far from the pump, set the car alarm off (again), tried to reverse with the e-brake on, and figured out you can fill up the tank then pay (weird).  Now getting back to the road was not as hard as I thought, but I missed a right turn and had to do about 3 circles to finally make the right turn.  THEN the radio was not working and I tried to fiddle with it…lets just say I left it silent.  I did make it home in time to have breakfast, change, and go to work, ON TIME, but don't forget, I set the alarm off again.  I seriously don't know why the alarm kept going off, but I'm sure most people did not appreciate it.  In the end, I made it to work alive and on time!! Yay.  And driving on the wrong side of the road seems normal now.  Uh oh.  

Punch Down Town

Do you want a mini lesson in winemaking? I am no professional at it, but I do know something…

When making red wine you have the fermentation of the juice with the skins.  Sometimes you can ferment with whole clusters (whole berries and stems), whole berries (destemmed) or destemmed and crushed.  The wineries I have worked at, J. Lohr, Ridge and St. Hallett, mainly destemmed and crushed their red grapes.  

At St. Hallett, some of the loads are a small tonnage, so putting them into a big tank is a waste of tank space.  With the condensed vintage we are having, tank space is valuable so these smaller loads are put into smaller containers: bins or portable tanks (smaller).  These fermentation vessels require more hands on care, versus the automated pump overs on the big red fermentors.  This is where the lab comes in and makes a manual job a little more fun…by naming the bin area "PunchDown Town".  On red fermenations, you want to extract color and tannin from the skins and to get this you need to emerse the skins in the juice.  But the years are actively fermenting, off gassing CO2, pushing the skins back up.  So for extraction purposes, punch downs help to extract from the skins.  Punch downs also help to mediate the temperature.  You don't want the ferments to get too hot unless the yeast will die. There are probably other bad side affects but I can not remember them from school at this point.  

Well that is your lesson in red wine making, and very brief and maybe not 100% accurate, but that is my take on it so far :)

The Lab

Sulphur Rigs

The lab has become my second home, or my home.  I have spent the majority of my waking hours in the lab at St. Hallett, so I will tell you guys about it.

Lets start from the beginning of the day.  We have to calibrate all the machines in the lab to make sure they are analyzing properly.  It would be useless to analyze all the wine incorrectly.  We use box wine to calibrate the sulphur rigs, pH/TA machine and the alcolyzer. I think it is funny because all my friends in college would drink the box/bag wine, while we just use it to mak sure nothing is going wrong.  We would never think to drink it, it is a tool, not a pleasure.

Alcolyzer

Depending on the time of year, the instruments will be used more or less.  During harvest, everything is used, but since there are a lot of juices we have to check the "Baume" (Brix) with a density meter often.  We also use the pH/TA meter a lot! That sucker has a workout everyday.  The sulphur rigs are always being used because knowing the sulphur levels in the wines are important.  No one wants bad bugs growing in the wine! There is also another machine that we call "The Stig".  We use it to analyze RS (residual sugar), VA, and malic acid.  It is a pretty handy machine and this way we don't use our spectrophotometer, unless the stig goes crazy (which happens).

pH/TA Machine

The alcolyzer analyzes the amount of alcohol in wines.  There isn't much more to say about that one.

This being the third winery lab I have worked at, it is nice to see the differences in what equipment there is.  J. Lohr, being a bigger winery, had more expensive machinery.  Ridge was smaller, so everything was manual.  St. Hallett is a good mix of manual things and automated things.

I can't really show you in a picture, but the lab is always blasting music.  It is a good way to keep going.  I love singing and dancing around!! We also love coffee.  Caffeine helps the world (lab) go round.

Manual, CHECK!

I drove a car on the wrong side of the road a few weeks ago.  I now manually drove a car on the wrong side of the road!!! With out stalling!!! YAY.  And to add onto the craziness, I went through 4 round a bouts.  Well only 2, but twice each and each time was different and stressful in its own way.  

Brooke was kind enough to take me for a joy ride, out to a back dirt road, and teach me to drive properly in Australia.  Having the gears on my left side was different, but thanks to Skye, and her letting me shift for her when I was young gave me some type of muscle memory to go back to.  I always ended up in the right gear, but getting there I was always skeptical.