Warp Speed 5, Captain Zulu

As a teenager, I was drawn to science fiction books. As soon as Asimov, Herbert or C. Clarke published a new one, I was on it like a Hobo on a Ham sandwich. It was science fiction that introduced me to the concept of Entropy (a thermodynamic property of systems, basically the observation that isolated systems tend to lose energy and eventually collapse).

You may ask what does this little tidbit have to do with a winery blog… I’m glad you asked. Almost every year, just before harvest I end up swearing that it is time to close shop and get away from the wine business. The overbearing regulations, the stress of dealing with contracts, sales projections and results, searching for and ordering supplies in time for bottling and all the other peripheral activities just sap one’s energy.  Unless I manage to sneak away for a surf trip; I feel whooped by the time September comes.  But then, just when you realize you left the house at 5:30 AM to get to the vineyard at first light and it will be 9 PM when you’ll be able to take off your boots at the front porch; something magical happens. You dump the first load of grapes into the press and get assaulted by the noises and smell of harvest activity, and you just don’t know what to do with all the energy!  I guess entropy CAN be reversed.

And for those of you who are more on the artistic side, hope you enjoy the following sublime photo from harvest, 98 Parker points to the first non winemaker that guesses what is in the picture.