Living & Working with Wine

Marie-Eve Hubert (Assistant Winemaker) + Gary Andrus

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." -William James

At the winery in Oregon, the fermentation hall was attached to the house in the old Burgundian style of 'living where you worked'. The fermentation hall was in the back, looming like a giant garage, and the barrel cellar was in the basement (which was actually the first floor of the building).  But I digress. Harvest/Crush was and always will be the most time sensitive and time consuming aspect of winemaking. At this time one particular year, we had very small little ones running around just as we were in the thick of it.  When the grapes came into the fermentation hall, they had to be processed immediately, regardless of the time of day or night that might happen to be.  As a result, we often ate dinner at odd hours and found ourselves doing punch downs at 2 a.m.  It was not out of the ordinary for Gypsy, our two-year-old at the time, to fall asleep in her high chair.  Such is the life of a winery kid.

Christine Andrus