Sunday, August 21, 2011

My Last Day at Chateau Montelena

This past Wednesday was my last day at Chateau Montelena – I go back to school on Monday for my final semester of viticulture study at Santa Rosa Junior College. While I am happy to be returning to classes, I am sad that my Montelena summer vineyard “internship” is over, and want to thank everyone who played a role in making it the valuable experience I hoped it would be. I learned a lot of things about growing grapes that I expected to learn – methods of irrigation, canopy management, and pest control, among others. What I did not expect to learn: how hard the work really is! Now when I hear someone say “the vineyard is where wine is made,” I will understand firsthand what they mean. I also did not expect that I would enjoy the company of my coworkers as much as I did – they helped to make each vineyard day a good one for me with their positive attitudes, good nature, and guidance. Jamie Rothberg, Marketing Coordinator, allowed me to share her blog space and was always helpful and responsive to my questions. But my biggest thanks has to go to Montelena’s Vineyard Manager, Dave Vella. Dave related to my desire to learn, and was willing to give me this opportunity, something for which I will always be grateful. On my last day, I posed for this picture with some of the vineyard crew. Only half were available at the time we took the picture, but my thoughts were with all 13 of them…Hasta la vista!

1 comment:

  1. Hi, enjoyed reading your blog. Do you know if the vineyard manager Dave Vella has any Maltese ancestor ancestry because his surname seems like it is. It would be wonderful to check :) Do you still work there?

    ReplyDelete