Testing the pH of a wine. Typically, though, only SO2 is tested right before bottling (the wine’s sugar and acidity has been adjusted previously).

At the beginning my summer, I began working in the vineyards and began to familiarize myself in the winery. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned some of my bottling experiences, and since then, I continued to bottle a couple days a week. However, for the last two weeks, my time is mostly divided into “bottling” and “tasting room” days.

A flow meter. Used to measure the speed and total volume of wine being pumped through the attachment.

On bottling days, we pump the desired wines from their tank to the tank inside the “Morton” (the warehouse building where the bottling set up is kept) to a tank. The wine is then filtered through 25 large filter pads and pumped to the bottling machine.

When the wine is bottled, it is transferred from the 1,000 gallon tank behind me through the filter in front of me, and pumped into the bottling machine.

One of the $3,000 pumps.

A wine order to transfer a few cases to the Hosmer barn Cellars.

The rest of the week (and weekends) have been devoted to tasting room work. Thus far it seems that this consists of stocking wines and pouring wine for customers. Having received a set of the vintner’s notes on each of the wines, and having to convey that knowledge to customers has been a great way to get the know the products offered. It also helps that I can then ask Aaron (the wine maker) about them in more detail on bottling days. However, many of the customers would prefer to talk about their days, other wineries, or just anything else.   The the days are less physically taxing than in the vineyards, with a much lower likelihood of sunburn. Instead, a long day of making small talk with strangers can be either relaxing and interesting and/ or mentally exhausting if there is a flood of customers. It seems that the two extremes of monotonous physical vineyard work and being accommodating and interested by everyone that walks into the tasting room are not exactly what I am looking for a career in. If I could keep switching from one to another as I have been able to do while being an intern, that would be ideal. However, there are more options, and I find myself looking toward this coming Fall semester to learn more about wine marketing from a new 2 credit class that is being offered.