I have a policy that all production staff must spend five minutes a day culling the fruit fly population with an electric fly swatter. Believe it or not it’s one task that an intern has never complained about.
I’d like to add that fishing a stem bin out of the pomace bin/truck is never fun.
Having been ‘a body’ and treated as such, I took umbrage with his characterization of the help available and how they should be treated and compensated. I reject the notion that you can’t trust your help, even well trained and supervised temporary help, to properly complete repetitive tasks in the winemaking process. As our staff has expanded, our quality and consistency has only improved, though this may be construed as a statement on my cellar skills, I think the heights we’ve reached indicate otherwise. As such, in my experience, Marcus’ statement was not realistic. Furthermore, I felt it was an opportune time to hold up a mirror to a noxious undertone of superiority in the thread. I’m sure Marcus’ comments don’t reflect how he normally treats people or his true character and am not trying to put him down, however, if as an employer, if there are failures in hiring, training or supervision, that’s your responsibility.
To clarify, we’ve never paid minimum wage, stipends or accepted volunteers because, as someone who started in wineries as a low wage worker, I find the practices odious. It’s also relevant that the core of our winery staff are people who started in wineries as low wage ‘bodies’ and were cast off as troublesome or lacking potential. That perspective forms the core of my response to Marcus’, and others, comments in this thread.
You sound like you carry a clipboard.
I kept waiting for someone to respond “Your mother” which would have been a sick burn.
Actually, Todd, we have people that carry the clipboards, too. Not bad for someone that was a low wage hose dragger fifteen years ago.
Have fun.
Not ITB, but a few years ago decided to humble myself by growing grapes and making wine in my Dallas backyard.
While on a biz trip this past week, the ~30lbs of grapes hanging were entirely eaten by squirrels. Had to vent. Now seeking local fruit so I can make something this year.
Ian, I get what you’re saying but I don’t think you read my original post correctly.
The comment I responded to was in regards to a previous post suggesting farming out cleaning to minimum wage “bodies”. My response was why we wouldn’t do that, i.e. cleaning in the winery needs training, care, and commitment(just like you said too!) And it had nothing to do with any kind of noxious superiority statement. Sorry if you read that into it. It did state pretty clearly, and I tried to reiterate, that as a small winery-I don’t budget for a full time cellar hand.
I didn’t list cleaning as a “least sexy” thing. I listed why Megan and I do it ourselves, and why we should do it ourselves or pay someone well above minimum wage to do it.
So-no clipboard carriers in my winery. No cellarhands in my winery. No winemakers hiring clipboard carriers in my winery. Just a couple of people who don’t mind getting dirty, and carrying their own hoses.
I worked my first harvest at Evesham Wood for $300 and a case of wine. I washed barrels for Jim Anderson and he paid me a bottle of Notorious(I would negotiate that deal a little better and get his Old Vine Estate next time.) I started my winery for $10,500, and I am the majority shareholder to this day, making 4000-5000 cases so that I don’t have to be a manager. I am super happy to still be the hose carrier at my winery, carboy sanitizer, tank scrubber, barrel washer, etc.
There are plenty of great, hard working, committed people working for lower wages in our industry. BUT, my point was that they should not be just “minimum wage bodies”. I get it that you did that at one point, but nowhere in my post did I comment that those people are a negative. I explained why I do my own cleaning. We should be clear on that now, right?
If my posts had a noxious feel to you. My apologies. Yours comes across to me as self righteous and not having really read what I posted in context to what I was addressing.(which might be on me for communication).
I feel for you. I love my entire crop to squirrels in 2012 when I changed netting. Now I’ve gone to double netting the high pressure area closest to the tree line and back to the original netting on everything else. I couldn’t get replacement fruit locally that year so ended up with a small bit of frozen just to put up a few gallons.
No worries. Like I said, I don’t think it reflects the way you think of or treat people and I wouldn’t have highlighted it if there wasn’t already discussion of ‘some minimum wage workers’ etc. earlier in the thread. The ‘noxious’ comment pointed at the undertone, like we just hire some meat for pennies to do idiot work, and not your post specifically. I appreciate and understand the perspective with which you’re coming at your craft, but, in contrast to Todd’s opinion, it isn’t the only way to address winemaking. From my perspective, having operated in that manner, it wasn’t the best way for us and we actively built to not do that. I’d be happy to explain why offline if you’re interested. Either way, the situation in the Willamette Valley isn’t the same as the situation here, and the types of projects you’d build to work in and reflect those situations are equally different. Me dragging hoses, scrubbing bungholes and artificially boutiquing our project would mean I couldn’t save old vineyards, help change perceptions of a multi-county region, push more holistic farming practices on a wider scale, help train and/or mentor the next generation in the region or work to keep more of our grapes in county (ok, I have a little bit of a background in community development). My feeling is those aren’t pressing issues in places like the Willamette. They are here.
To bring it all the way back around, like many here, as the owner I take on the nastiest tasks when they need to be done. Which, as it turns out, is often not on the winery floor.
Lol, that sucks. I was looking forward to futures of your wine! Damnit!
I appreciate your attempt to meet inthe middle.
Your next to last paragraph is your opinion but it still reeks of self righteousness.
If you think I don’t do all the things you listed, you’re completely incorrect. If you think you couldn’t do those things from a 2.5 person winery, you aren’t seeing the true possibilities.
I don’t “artificially” do anything, nor am I “boutique”. It’s a craft, and the size of your operation does not imply it being more correct, more “serious”, or more valuable to society as a whole.
I mentor people in all of the things you mentioned and in “building their own house” so they own it rather than collect a paycheck as well.
You should also stay away from foolish judgements about what other wine regions issues are pressing and which aren’t. Everything you listed is as important in the Willamette Valley as anywhere, and the implied elitism of your post is annoying as hell, even if unintentional.
The first three people to signup for my futures program will receive the actual squirrels who ate the 2019 crop. Deliverable today!
I’m in for your futures, but I am full up on squirrels so please utilize them for those without deep rodent options!
Marcus,
You also make assumptions and misinterpret what I’m saying. For instance, to save a two acre plot of old vines, you have to make somewhere in the couple hundred cases. To save a 20 acre plot of old vines, you have to make somewhere in the couple thousand cases. It requires a different scale. To work in multiple vineyards of that size requires an even larger scale, more than I could handle as an individual winemaker. That’s what’s required to do the work we’re discussing down here, from what you say it’s a different story where you work. I don’t think that more than half the fruit produced in the Willamette leaves the Valley, but correct me if I’m wrong. I think given the history here with large scale farming (like Almaden big) and land ownership based on the Mission land grants, we’re probably dealing with different factors. I don’t think anything like Almaden ever touched Oregon. Go back 20 years and we had the largest contiguous vineyard the world had seen at 10,000 acres in Monterey. What’s the total Willamette acreage? Twice that? I think our winery is 7x yours. That was what seemed like the best juncture of efficiency and quality here. Just here.
It’s funny to me that what I’m saying is eliciting the reaction you’re having. That’s pretty much the feeling I got from your post – self-righteous and grating, a judgement on how I was conducting my work. I was pushing back against the idea that the approach you put forward was the only best approach. Perhaps your approach to winemaking (a neutral statement), or the right size for your place, or any number of factors means offering those sorts of jobs doesn’t make sense for you. We have a murder rate in Salinas that rivals Oakland and Compton, and a poverty rate to match. Offering those sorts of jobs in a place where the median income is $17,000 was an important part of our plan. We plan on offering more of them, and are working to help other wineries set up shop here to leverage the work we’re doing. That’s the point of a value-added product.
I hope that context makes it sound a little less self-righteous. There’s no judgement on what you’re doing, only that if you’re not hiring good help, it’s not because there isn’t good help to hire. You can trust someone to clean a press well. Or stack barrels, or scrub bungholes, or do inventory…
You are amazing.
Have fun, Todd.
Standing up to my armpits in fermenting winery waste water trying to clear a blocked sump at 3 AM on a chilly Sunday morning at the end of a 21 hour work day was a particularly low point for me.
Different winemakers do different things.
Some spend most of their time in offices, tastings, etc.
I like the periodic wine dinner… gives me a chance to get out of the bubble and see what motivates and excites knowledgeable wine drinkers. And, unlike Todd apparently, I’ve mastered the art of re-arranging food on my plate so it looks like I’ve consumd most of a dish even if I haven’t had any.
But I stay close to home, and most of my work is in vyd and in the cellar.
Biggest problems there are back aches and chronic athlete’s foot.
And, of course, compliance paperwork sucks any time, anywhere.
Hi Ian,
Maybe if you wanted to talk about your model, you should have written your own post about why you do what you do, rather than quoting someone else’s statement about WHAT THEY DO and using it as a leaping off platform to defend/ explain/trumpet your choices?
Your post about what you do, the landscape you work in, and the model and importance of your business are all interesting and valid in their own identity. So why did you need to start it by attacking someone else’s?
Marcus’ original post was to someone not in the industry, about why he doesn’t just toss cleaning jobs off on “anyone”. When you responded, he pointed out that you were still talking about people you took care in training, and hopefully were not paying minimum wage. I.E. he was not in any way denigrating your winery or process, or denigrating the work of individuals starting out in the industry or working in your cellar.
As far as I can tell you still didn’t bother to re-read his post. He said that in order to remain small (his choice for his business and not related to your choices at all) he didn’t have full time work for anyone outside of the winemaking team. Admittedly he did not mention that the second member of his team started out in 2011 as a harvest intern with zero experience, worked elsewhere for 2 vintages, came back as Assistant Winemaker, and within 3 years was offered partnership in the winery. Obviously he doesn’t have a problem finding good help… the ladder up here is just maybe a bit steeper than in your cellar.
He did not say that this was the only way to run a winery, or compare himself to anyone else, or our winery model to anyone else’s, and certainly not to yours. You are the one doing the comparing. (Well, and me now too.) In a full page of comment about cleaning he only offered an economic explanation of why he (and his small personal team) did the cleaning, and the economic value of cleaning as being a part of his small team’s process and not something outsource-able.
He apologized to you for maybe not being clear (weird for me, since I felt this was one of his most clear statements) and you continued to denigrate his work and tout your own.
There are lots of models for wineries that work. You found the one that works for you. That’s great. If you don’t want to be seen as dismissive or critical of what someone else does, you should probably just write your own post about what you do. If you just shared what you did that would have been great, the board would have seen another model for a successful business in the wine industry, and you would have zero push back from Marcus and myself…
Todd I can’t really vouch for. 
Megan! 3 posts in 5 years Since joining the forum. Really glad you posted and hope you post more! Love ITB folks.
Appreciate the answer Marcus and others!