Final Leg

I made it to California on the 23rd. After a nice couple of days in SLC, I headed out and did about half the drive one day stopping in Winnemucca, NV and then finishing the trek on Saturday. And thank god I did. If I had to find this place in the dark, I would have been sleeping on the side of the road. The place I am staying is amazing. The Johnstons own a little cottage next to their house that consists of a single bedroom, living room, and kitchen. It is perfect for me. Even better is that they live on the same drive off the main road as Neyers Estate meaning that my commute to work every day will be a 1.5-2 min walk, maximum. After that I found out that they have a ski boat and love to take it out. I think I may be in paradise. No phone service and no Internet at the house but I can use the winery's computer whenever.

The night I arrived, after settling in, I headed over to the house for dinner with Cindy, Tom, and their daughter Chelsey. We had a great, simple meal of home grown lamb and salad (did I mention that they raised sheep?). They broke out a bunch of wine that Cindy makes from grapes grown on her mothers property that was amazing. Their friend David Arthur, who is a vintner here in Napa, stopped by with his daughter and her fiance. What a better intro to the area. Well, it gets better. Sunday we all went out to the lake and spent all day water skiing and tubing around and had Elk sandwiches for lunch. I was able, for the first time, to get up on the skis and was just getting to the point where I could get outside the break by the end of the day. Today my back and legs are killing me but it is such a good pain.

Today was my first at the winery. I finally got to meet the winemaker, Tadeo, face to face after months of talking to him on the phone. It was an easy day and it looks like grapes won't be coming in for at least another week or so but it is nice to be able to ease into the swing of things and learn how they do things here. Our crew will consist of Me, Tadeo, Marie (another intern, from Texas), Roberto, and Bernard. Both Carlos and Bernard speak little to no English so I got to dust off the cobwebs from that part of my brain which, felt quite nice. A very small operation, Tadeo is expecting about 22o tons this year. In comparison at Villa Maria we processed a total of 11,500 tons and some nights I would work through 300-400 tons in 12 hours. This week will be a bit slow so I plan on touring around the area and hopefully finding some trails to bike. Apparently, if you are in the business, the other wineries will wave their tasting fees....