Reflections on Life as a Cellar Rat

Back from SF and reflecting on the life of a cellar rat. These are the people that do the day to day work in the winery and for two weeks I was proud to count myself as one of them.

"Cellar rat" sounds like a derogatory term but those living the life are a rather happy bunch. The pay is not good but the music is cranked up, the juice/wine tastes good and the fork lifts make beep beep sounds so it is easy to get out of their way, safety being a major winery concern.

The cellar rats range from people like me who are serious about making good wine and trying to learn everything about it, to the grizzled veterans who have worked many a harvest around the world. Some migrate with the harvest seasons, working in the southern hemisphere the other half of the year

There were several interns who were working on their enology or viticulture degrees and several folks who had been laid off and viewed this as an opportunity to change career directions. For the most part, the extra help is welcomed, as there is so much to do this time of year.

The winery owners such as myself, do not get paid for our harvest work. We hope to sell a little of our wine, of course.

A surprizing number of others do not get paid either. Many are happy to do it for the experience. Kind of the urban winery equivalent of a dude ranch. In fact, every evening was crush camp, in which folks with no experience had signed up and paid money to have the privelege of sorting fruit and punching down bins. Tom Sawyer has nothing on our winery! I will say that winery work is more fun than whitewashing a fence.

So...I miss the camaraderie, the energy and enthusiasm that people bring to winery work and the sense of pride in making something really good that you know people will savor and enjoy. As for the music...U2, Dr John, the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley I miss. The hip hop, not so much.