Energetic Harvest Crew!

	Early morning instructions before a full day.

When you have days that begin in cold water, cleaning presses and tanks, at 7:30 and continue running from one job to another until well past that time at night, only to return for midnight punchdowns, you need passion and energy. And this year's crew has plenty of both, fueled by beer at night on the front porch of the Chehalem House where most are housed. Jobs run from washing presses or tanks or picking bins, to punching down fermentors, to running lab analyses on tank samples, to washing more, to forklifting fruit bins and rotating them into presses or sorting conveyor, to prepping barrels for juice or final wine, to washing conveyors and destemmers you've just dirtied, to filling barrels, to....you've got the idea. Last year I parodied the intense campaign-like nature of harvest in a fiction "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" for the Fall 2003 newsletter. At times the extremes aren't that far from reality.

Nicolas Giraudeau punching down an 8-ton tank with the pneumatic tool.

Nelle Bauer cleaning press prior to chardonnay pressing.

The core of this year's crew, having to deal with Michael, Mike, Melissa and my sometimes contradictory requests, includes:

• Nicolas Giraudeau: a Frenchman from Bordeaux who, in the other half of the year, is assistant winemaker under Rudi Bauer at Quartz Reef in Central Otago, New Zealand and who speaks impeccable English from a palate that is very skilled.
• Nelle Bauer: a graduate of CIA (Hyde Park, not Langley, VA) and a physics graduate of Bryn Mawr, Nelle worked a week of harvest three years ago and must have had amnesia, since she's back for more; very proactive, Nelle abhors standing around and dives into anything that needs doing.
• Wayne Rutledge: a Kiwi who has last worked at Rosemount in Australia, Wayne extends the string of gregarious, mannerly and hard-working New Zealanders we've had here for harvest over the years. Referred to us by Greg who worked the last two vintages with us from down-under.
• Cheryl Wilson: an escapee from normal workaday life as a Microsoft human resources professional, Cheryl is a Seattle-ite who followed a wine passion to retail, intro UC-Davis coursework and harvest work at Felton Road in New Zealand before coming back to the northwest to learn it from the ground up.
• Rinda Chambers: local and also willing to submit to the rigors of harvest as a diversion, Rinda has been a professional waiter at a couple of the best Portland restaurants, Zefiro and Bluehour; she is literally very flexible in accepting harvest jobs, having a degree and active participation in modern dance.

We have also shanghied others for extended help during the heat of battle, including Melanie Bell, a retail wine buyer from Greensboro, NC; my daughter Wynne, who now doesn't have weekends available until harvest is over; Eliza Michiels, another escapee from real work, who worked with Wynne in Syracuse at a pharmaceutical research firm until recently moving to Portland; and several other old and new friends I'll mention later.

Truly a team effort!