How we work to make getting around the world work.

One of Tyrrell's amazing vineyards, framed by the Brokenback Mountain Range

Whenever we tell people that we fund our travels by working in wineries during the harvest period, we invariably get sighs about how idyllic and romantic it must be and lots of jokes about drinking on the job, etc. While it is indeed a very fun (and sometimes romantic) industry to work in, comprised of very internationally-minded people, it is actually quite scientifically precise work, and can be very physically challenging and exhausting. But drinking a wine that you have worked on and have had a part in nurturing from harvest, to fermentation right through to bottling is an extremely rewarding and satisfying experience. Add to that the fact that the hours spent assessing wine ferments in the lab, doing manual and at times menial labor, but having the opportunity to learn from magicians (which, is how I’ve come to think of some winemakers when you see what kind of magic they can perform in the winery) allows us to travel around the world… Well, the wine industry has us hooked. 

Building a retaining wall

Don’t get me wrong, we’re pretty much willing to take any work that gives us a good feeling (for example, while waiting for harvest to begin, we helped a friend of a
friend build a retaining wall and put up a shed) and we’ve both dabbled in other industries along the way (the scuba industry, pearling and Harley Davidson for Roel). We do what we can to make it work. So we wanted to share with you what we’re doing for work to make it work right now…

Nightshift

Because nature waits for no one, Tyrrell’s operates a nightshift so that certain vineyards can also be picked by night with machine harvesters and the grapes can be processed right away to ensure high quality wine. Roel and I comprise half of the team that keeps the winery going in the dark. This is Roel’s third vintage working nightshift at Tyrrell’s and it is my first (previously, I had worked at two other wineries in Australia). So now, Roel is kind of like my boss. Regardless of how well we work as a team, you can imagine how well this might go ;)

Our actual manager on nightshift, Adam, is studying winemaking and our other co-worker, Kaz, is also studying wine at university, so we stand to learn a lot, which besides money, is really why we’re here at such an esteemed winery. Tyrrell’s was establish in 1858 by English immigrant, Edward Tyrrell and is currently under the stewardship of 4th generation Bruce Tyrrell, whose children are being groomed to carry this iconic family wine brand well into the future. Tyrrell’s produces a wide range of wines but has a few truly iconic wines that are highly sought after on the international wine market. It is really an honor to work here and to feel like we’re a small part of this tremendous brand and it’s history. So, whenever our sleep schedule allows, we try to get into the winery during the day so we can ask questions and learn from the two head winemakers who have worked at Tyrrell’s for a combined 54 years (one focusing on red wine and one on white); the directors of what is considered the most technically advanced laboratory in the region; and the Tyrrell family, who are down-to-earth and happy to generously share everything they know and love about Australian wine. 

To give you an idea of how a typical shift goes for us…

6:00pm 
Wake up. Drink coffee. 

Using an air hose to mix up a ferment... one of the reasons
why all of my vintage clothes look like a tie-dye experiment
gone wrong :)

Dress in what my mother would call “play clothes” because they will inevitably be ruined at some stage during vintage, especially when we start working with red wine. Eat breakfast. Drink more coffee. 

7:00pm

Arrive at work. Clean and sanitize all machinery and tools that will be used to process the grapes that will arrive later. This includes the grape receival bin (where Roel will tip the grapes into from the picking bins), the crusher/destemmer (which yes, crushes the grapes and removes them from the stem), the lines that the grapes/juice will travel through to get into the press, the press (which will gently press out the juice that remains in the grapes), the lines to the tank that will hold the juice, and the tank itself. It is imperative that the grapes be processed as quickly as possible in a sanitary environment to ensure that the highest quality of wine is produced and no damage is done to the grapes/juice through, for example, oxidation (think of how quickly an apple turns brown once it has been bitten into).

Roel on the forklift, tipping grapes into the receival bin

7:30pm - ???

Receive and crush grapes. 

While crushing, we all have roles to fill:

One person operates the forklift, removing bins of grapes form the truck bed, weighing them (so we know what volume to use when calculating additions, later on in the process), and then tipping the grapes into the receival bin. 

Another operates the two augers that move grapes from the receival bin to the crusher/destemmer, the crusher/destemmer and the must pump that pumps the grapey juice mixture (called “must”) into the press. 

Another is required to operate the press and the pump that sends juice into the tank. 

And and yet another “floats,” helping out here and there, working on tanks of juice that have arrived in previous days and once all of the juice is in the tank. 

This portion of what we do is fairly routine but once the grapes are processed and the juice in ready for fermentation or in fermentation, the real fun begins. 

12:00am ???

Lunch? Maybe. Definitely more coffee.

Looking to wear my rubber boots for cleaning,
but they have already been claimed.

12:30am - ???

Cleaning (i.e. chasing grapes with a hose), for however long it takes until there is not a single grape visible on/in any surface of any piece of equipment we have used or flooring we have covered. 

3:00am

Ferment Analysis

With the white wines, and some red wines, Tyrrell’s utilizes yeast naturally found on the grapes to get the juice through the fermentation process. Because this is less predictable than using cultivated yeasts, it is more challenging and hence we have to keep a very close eye on the ferments to ensure that they stay within an optimal temperature range, that the yeast is doing it’s job and the sugar level is dropping consistently as sugar is converted to alcohol. While we are checking the temperature and sugar, we are also checking for strange smells coming from the ferment. This is where having a few years of experience really comes in handy. 

Roel smelling a ferment to make sure all is well

A strange smell can be indicative of a variety of things, but at this point, usually, it means that the yeast is “stressing” and if left unattended, this can result in a faulty (bad tasting/smelling) wine. With red wine, it will eventually become very obvious when this is the case as the ferment will smell like rotten eggs, but the key is smelling a subtle whiff of something amiss and acting before it gets too far. With white wine, it can sometimes smell like rotten eggs, but it can also smell like canned pineapple or popcorn (which doesn’t necessarily smell bad, but is indicative of bad things happening within the ferment). If it smells like a ferment is “stressing” we add nutrition for the yeast, and continue to closely monitor the temperature, sugar and smell. 

Wine movement supervisor

Wine Movement

Just like it sounds… we move wine from tank to tank, barrel to barrel, barrel to tank and vice versa, per the winemakers instruction; these movements are generally done in order to clarify the wine, as with each “movement” particles that settle to the bottom of the tank/barrel are left behind. 

A unwelcome co-worker

Barrel Work

Barrels and Fudras (super large barrels) need lots of attention, too. Regardless of whether or not they contain an active ferment or are being used for aging a wine. The barrels need to be topped up with more wine or juice from time to time as an “Angel’s Share” regularly evaporates from each barrel, leaving the remaining wine at risk to oxygen

Roel topping up a fudra with more wine to eliminate
the air space at the top

exposure. Also, depending on the type and style of wine, the barrel may need to be stirred to ensure adequate contact with the lees (yeast that has finished its job and settled to the bottom of the barrel) and contributes to a wine’s taste and mouth-feel. 

6:00am

Beer-o-Clock

Yea, very strange, but you get used to it. 

Ramming

The process changes slightly and things get A LOT busier when we begin to work with red wine varietals, like pinot noir, shiraz, cabernet and merlot. Instead of immediately pressing the must, we instead put it into a large concrete or stainless steel vats and guide it through the fermentation process with LOTS of TLC in the form of thrice daily ramming (a process where you use a stick with a flat bottom attached and gently press down the grapes that have risen to the top of the ferment back down into the juice),

Fun with pumping-over

aeration or pumping juice from the bottom of the vat over the top of the grape cap on top. This is all to ensure that the juice has a good amount of contact with the grape skins where color and other important elements of the wine will be derived.

Once a ferment has finished, we then drain the vat of all of the wine and shovel or pump the remaining must into a press to extract remaining wine from the grapes. 

I have to say it took a few weeks to get used to sleeping during the day and being awake and functioning all night long. It is certainly not ideal for the body clock or your sanity, but there were a few things I really came to appreciate about working night shift .

1. This harvest began as a serious heat wave was moving across Australia, threatening wildfires and just generally making anyone outside of an air-conditioned building, miserable. Working at night was perfect… the heat of the day had disappeared and the temperature couldn’t have been more pleasant. 

Sunset from the "office"

2. Watching the moon rise over the silhouette of the Broken Back Mountain range. 

3. Watching the sun rise over over fields where sleepy kangaroos were just beginning their day with a breakfast of dewey grass.

Sunrise at the "office"

And the Australian Wine Harvest of 2014 begins...

For those of you who may just be joining us on our journey, we have not yet discovered a Money Tree, so we are currently in the midst of the "annual fund raising" portion of our journey. We are working in a winery in Australia, making wine during the harvest season, and saving every dollar we earn, earmarking it for a future adventure. But in the meantime... we wanted to share with you how we make our travels around the world "work." And, of course, have a little fun in the process :)

The sun rising over Tyrrell's Long White Flat Vineyard on the first day of Vintage 2014

We figured we were just arriving in the Hunter Valley a week early so that we could secure the “best” room (i.e. the one with the best aircon), the “best” mattress and get ourselves organized before the start of vintage. However, knowing that we were around and keen to work, the winery asked us to come in and give a hand with processing the grape samples they were beginning to collect, so they could gauge how far off the first pick of harvest would be. We were ecstatic to begin: the energy around harvest is very exciting and it spreads throughout the winery and the vineyards, with everyone oddly looking forward to long, hard days, that will, with a little cooperation from Mother Nature, yield excellent wines as a result. 

When to harvest any given block (particular segment) of a vineyard is based on the sugar, acid, pH levels and flavor of the various samples that are collected from that block. Throughout our morning back at work, different growers arrived, bags of grapes in hand, for

All hands on deck: Roel and I got out of the winery
 and helped out with picking on the first day of Harvest 2014.
A nice change despite the pre-dawn alarm bells :)

Roel and I to crush and suss. By the end of the day, with high sugar levels and fairly good acid, it was clear that harvest was actually upon us, and the first pick was scheduled for the very next morning. 

And so harvest has begun and has kept right on going. For the past two years, harvesting has been primarily determined by the weather, with some blocks being picked too early in an effort to get

those grapes off of the vine before a big rain and some blocks being picked too late, after a series of rainfalls and subsequent days of high humidity where mold spread throughout the grapes before harvesters were able to get into the vineyard to get them off. However, this vintage, there has been hardly any rain and so grapes have come off of the vines and into the winery in a very organized, well-planned and civilized fashion. Of course harvest wasn’t without dramas… i.e., mechanical harvesters breaking down in the middle of vineyards and poor mechanics being called out in the middle of the night to get them back up and running. Nature waits for no one… 

How small batches of premium hand-picked fruit are crushed

Overall, the fruit has looked beautiful and tasted brilliant. Very high sugar levels, but good acid and very, very clean bunches with hardly any disease. 

A Praying Mantis (background) surveying his prey (ladybug in foreground) in a picking pin full of grapes about to be crushed... just before I grabbed his hind legs and rescued him from certain death in the crusher :)

Additionally, although most of the premium fruit is hand-picked, we usually have to “save” a lot of critters from bins of grapes that arrive via mechanical harvesters… think of whatever you would

A lucky Bearded Dragon, plucked out of a bin of grapes,
just in the nick of time!

find in a vineyard on any given day… snakes, lizards, mice, insects, etc. As the mechanical harvester collects bunches of grapes, it also collects whatever happens to be sitting (or sleeping) on any given bunch of grapes. But this year, we’ve hardly had to rescue any animals from becoming part of the wine. Only a few...

Next up… We’ll take you into the winery to show you our version of "How It's Made": Grape Juice ->-> Wine.

Our Home Away from Home Down Under

The view from our back porch

Heading back to the Hunter Valley once we left Sydney, felt a bit like going “home.” For the past two years, we have lived in a large share house on the Tyrrell’s Wines family estate, called Weinkeller, that is reserved for harvest casuals. The house is surrounded by vineyards, horse, cattle and kangaroo pastures, bush and mountains. It's an incredibly idyllic setting. Our housemates are comprised

Beating the heat

of a hodge podge of young people from all around Australia and the world, who come together for two - three months to crush grapes, make some wine, work hard and play hard (sometimes harder).

Neighbors

Being the first two of three to arrive, we claimed one of the good rooms (i.e., one with an aircon) and bounced from mattress to

Unwelcome houseguest in the sink

mattress, to see which one was the best. We spent two days cleaning (the house had been uninhabited for about 8 months) and getting reacquainted with the massive, but "harmless", spiders that Australia is known for. After a jump from one of our housemates, my trusty old ’95 Camry that I’ve driven right around Australia,

Belly rubbing distracts Bunny from his recent kill (lower left)

was up and running, again. And gradually, the semi-feral cat we adopted last year (and named "Bunny", due to his talent for killing bunnies and delicately placing them in the kitchen) warmed up to us, and we had a "pet", again. We stocked our cupboards with a weeks worth of meals and snacks, not something we have been able to do lately given our food storage capacity on the bikes. I wonder if we’ll miss our daily visits to the shop. Don’t think so. 

More neighbors

Full house for dinner

And slowly, the house filled up… two French girls, Anais and Fanny, who are working in the vineyard, returned from their holiday trip to Melbourne. A guy Roel has worked with for the past couple of years, Josh, drove up from his family winery in Victoria to work the Hunter Valley harvest before going home to harvest his family’s vineyard. Kaz, an Australian who is studying winemaking, along with Lucas,

Showing friends visiting from Italy around our backyard

another Aussie, moved in from their parents’ homes just down the road. South African Jacques made his way over from Western Australia where he had been working/living with his Australian partner, Tegan. And eventually, another French couple, Mark and Juliet, arrived fresh off of a tour through Southeast Asia. 

With nothing to do but cook, drink and enjoy sleep-ins while

Not sure we have enough wine...

waiting for harvest to begin, the atmosphere around the house has been fantastic. We share large group dinners, routinely pick through boxes of wine that are brought up to the house for us and swap travel and wine stories. The French girls have helped me perfect my béchamel sauce and will occasionally prepare

Oeufs en Meurette

Burgundian specialities for us, such as "Oeufs en Meurette" (poached eggs served in a mushroom and red wine reduction sauce, with toast). And if I don’t lose any weight this vintage, it’s thanks to Anais’s beignets! YUMMMM. 

Who was on 'dish duty', again?

Fun, yes. But if you counted the number of people living in this house, you might question how this will all work out. Especially when you consider that we all share one bathroom and one kitchen (without a dishwasher). Hmmmmmm...

Another neighbor

I have a feeling that as much as Roel and I are enjoying sleeping in a bed, having a freezer (YAY for ice cream) and an oven, it won’t be long before we’re missing our tent. 

Settling (the bikes) down for a long winters nap... Wonderful holidays and our nightmare in the air.

(Sorry folks - wayyyyy behind on the blogging. But I'll catch up soon... Our internet situation is quite challenging in Australia as it is either painfully expensive and slow or just plain too slow to upload blogs/photos... 3 hours of (expensive) uploading later, this blog is ready to publish! More to come, soon...)

Our last few days in the USA were a blur. 

My last CA fuel-up for now...
(and yes, with California's anti-fume nozzles, and my
(lack of height) it is necessary for me
to climb atop my bike to refuel)

My lovely Mom flew to LA to spend Christmas with us (hotel room style) and made the logistics of our bike storage/luggage organization/airport run infinitely easier. She’s a Saint, only complaining a bit about how terrifying it was to drive behind us on the I-5 with cars speeding and weaving through traffic all around our bikes as we made our way to Irv Seaver BMW in Anaheim to settle our babies in for a little winter hibernation. 

With the fuel tanks drained, our camping gear stashed away and the assurance that our bikes would be in good company, we thanked our friends at Irv Seaver and drove to our “hotel home” with my Mom. 

Merry Christmas!

Delirium Noel... yessss

Love Christmas Day walks on Malibu Beach

She spent the next few days spoiling us with cheese, lovely wines, cuddles, Mexican food, Target/Walmart runs and beers before we headed back to Australia where all of these things (but Mom cuddles) can be procured, but at 2x - 3x the cost.

Mom & Roel on Malibu Beach

We snacked on the remainder of our holiday cheese selection in the International Terminal at LAX before boarding our 14 hour Qantas flight to Sydney. As delicious as this was, it was a mistake. 

But, yes. 14 hours. What, you ask can make a 14 hour flight bearable? Well, we’d scored some luxury Qantas tickets on sale on a flight boasting seatback entertainment, comfortable seats with ‘decent’ legroom and reasonably palatable plane food and wine. None of which we got to enjoy, mind you, as we came down with food poisoning (probably from our pre-flight cheese) 2 hours into our 14 hour flight. That is the stuff of nightmares, folks. 

We arrived in Sydney, in quite a state. Imagine how slack you feel after a long flight. Imagine how slack you would feel after 12 hours of hugging an airplane toilet. Ugh. Fortunately, we sailed through customs and into the air conditioned comfort of my friend Alex’s car, which ferried us back to her apartment where we proceeded to sleep away the rest of the day enjoying the ocean breeze that blew through the window from nearby Bronte Beach.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4am and made our way to the Sydney Botanical Gardens to get in line for the famous New Year’s fireworks show. Usually, getting in line by 6am guarantees that when they open the gates at 10am, you will get a good seat. However, when we arrived at 6am, there were hundreds of people ahead of us already. Yes, the “early bird” or in this case, the “Asian bird” caught the worm, and by the time we made it into the Garden, all of the prime spots to view the fireworks were taken, (largely because money grubbers had blocked off over half of the primo locations for “seats” available for purchase at $300+ a pop)f. 

We jockeyed for a good position all day and wound up just rushing the fence with everyone else at 11:59pm. The fireworks were spectacular and we got a beautiful view, and some decent photos (if I do say so, myself) of Sydney’s epic New Year's celebration.  

A swanky catch-up with friends @ Icebergs on Bondi Beach

We spent the next few days enjoying time with friends in Sydney and New Castle, soaking up the last bits of our “holiday” before we were to return to the Hunter Valley for vintage. 

Our last hurrah for 2013

Our last few weeks in the States flew by.

After having to skip seeing San Francisco in order to get to the Long Beach Bike Show, we were determined to explore SF and ride the famed Pacific Coast Highway before leaving the country. 

Due to critical paperwork for my Australian visa application appearing in my inbox just as we were about to set out, (Murphy’s Law) we wound up not making it too far North on our first day. The sun set, but we continued to follow our “route” as the road wound up through the Santa Barbera mountains, until we found a suitable spot to camp just off of the road but well-hidden, overlooking the twinkling lights of Santa Barbara with ocean liners beyond. 

We packed up early the next morning but couldn’t leave the

Cleaning up after others

site in the condition we had found it in… there was litter and broken glass everywhere. Our creed is that we always leave places we have stayed better than we found them. This case was no different, and by the time we rode off we had shopping bags filled with garbage hanging off of all safe/available places on the bikes. 

We had planned to fit in a few wine tastings throughout the Paso Robles area but stopped first to visit a friend and former colleague from the vintage I had done at Two Hands in South Australia. Darren is now working for Tablas Creek, a biodynamic estate winery producing all Rhone varieties. For wine nerds like us, this place was a treasure trove of interesting practices, facts and delicious wine. Darren spent a good part of the afternoon touring us through the vineyards, farming areas, winery and finally brought it all together with a fabulous tasting which included many back vintage treats that were leftover from their staff tasting the day before. I’d say our timing was perfect!!

We went on our merry way just a few minutes before 4pm and did our best to get a little farther north before searching for a place to camp. It was getting cold and we were both exhausted, so we settled on a poorly managed field just off of the highway, riding in a few hundred meters before finding a nice level spot to pitch the tent. 

We made a quick stop to visit our friend Lee at Racer Gloves USA. We had met him at the Long Beach show and really liked his product and also his outlook on sales. If you’re in need of some new gloves this riding season, I highly recommend Racer Gloves… the product is top notch and the customer service policies maintain that level of quality: if your gloves aren’t a perfect fit, you can ship them back and receive a different size, free of shipping costs. Lee just wants his customers to be happy with their new gloves. We certainly are :)

And on we went to San Francisco. 

Thanks to some local recommendations and guides, we found a couple of very sweet spots to view the city from. We arrived at Marin Headlands hours before the sun was to set and thought we would be bored while we were waiting. 

However, watching the bridge change colors from a rusty brown to a shining gold, not only did we finally understand where the name “Golden Gate” came from, but we were enthralled by the interplay of the wonder of nature and this wonder of human creation.

The Golden Gate Bridge, looking truly golden

Between sun set and moon rise, we filled our memory cards with photos of the Golden Gate Bridge with the beautiful San Francisco skyline beyond. 

With some of the Piston & Chain Crew

Piston & Chain

We joined a gathering at Piston and Chain, a really unique and cool motorcycle club in downtown SF, which gives city dwellers with limited garage space a place to work on their bikes. Our Toronto friends, Carol and Hans had “e-introduced” us to a relative, Daniel, who is a member there. Daniel and his family were incredible hosts during our time in SF and showed us some really beautiful spots. 

We spent a night camping in the Marin Headlands and put to use our Christmas gift from Adventure Designs, an awesome adventure riding shop just outside of SF. Adventure Designs

Being interviewed @ Adventure Designs

has everything to kit out bikes for big or small adventures, and the guys at the shop are extremely helpful. Chad noticed that one of our shoddy camping chairs was broken and before we left, gave us two new extremely comfortable (and lightweight, packable) Joey Chairs. Per usual, we
waited out rush-hour traffic and set up our tent well after dark. We sat outside enjoying the city lights twinkling through

the Golden Gate Bridge until it got too chilly and we turned in. We rose early the next morning to catch the sun rise over the city and watched the city wake up as we leisurely enjoyed our coffees in our Joey chairs. 

Sunrise over San Francisco

With Daniel and his friend, Christian, escorting us on their KTMs, we headed South on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading inland for a stop at Alice’s Restaurant for lunch. We said goodbye to Daniel and set off South again, with Christian taking us on a beautiful ride through an impressive redwood forrest. 

After waving goodbye to Christian, Roel and I continued down the coast for a few hours, stopping just before Big Sur and following the descriptions of roads that Daniel and Christian had given us that would lead to a beautiful camping area in yet another redwood forrest. 

We set up camp in a clearing in the towering trees, put together our new chairs and laid out our cheese feast, a gift from Daniel’s wife, Caroline. It truly was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

We rose early the next morning, determined to get within reach of Los Angeles by nightfall, as my mother would be flying in to spend the holiday with us.

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur

Big Sur

Our ride South was picturesque but largely uneventful, aside from a few moments of violent elephant seal fighting. We enjoyed some sweeping coastal views of Big Sur, got to see how the coastal fog conceals 

nearly everything along and on the PCH and even stopped for a taste at the “Wine Ghetto” in Lompoc (a collection of wineries in an industrial area).

Elephant Seals Whining

The next day was Christmas Eve and since we still had heaps to do in LA before my mother arrived in the afternoon, we made sure to get within reach of the city that evening. Though we didn’t sleep for long, the spot we chose was only a few meters from where the waves crashed on the beach all night long. We packed up our tent for the last time the next morning and headed into the city. 

Our last camp spot of 2013

A successful last hurrah, and there was no shortage of gratitude on our parts that our bikes stayed mechanically “sound” for the duration of it.