So those who have been listening closely between my self-obsessed ramblings
about whether my curly hair makes my ass look big, may have heard something
mumbled about making wine. This year a couple of friends and I are going to
crush something on the order of 4 tons of grapes and make upwards of 250 cases
of wine... in my Potrero Hill garage. We've got 14 oak barrels, some stainless
tanks, and all sorts of funky chemicals. However, around harvest time (early
September through mid-October) there is more stuff to do than the few of us are
able to do. Among the major tasks are:

* Pruning vines
* Picking fruit
* Loading/unloading fruit (including pitch-forking grapes)
* Sorting fruit
* Crushing, destemming and pressing fruit
* Moving shit around

So, if you haven't guessed it by now, I'm looking for free labor. Well sort of
free. We'll feed you, liquor you up, compliment you, and, of course, give you
some of Brill's Swill when we bottle it (BTW, my hobbies only involve things
where I can make a lot of swill). Actually, note that we're planning on making
very high-end wine - buying rockstar grapes, using high-end winemaking
techniques, etc. Assuming I don't f*ck it all up, it should be quite good.

We're going to try to do everything on weekends and any time you can put it
would be most appreciated. So drop me an email at michael@... or call
me at 415-902-7097 if you're *potentially* interested. That is, even if you
don't know if you have any availability, but would generally be interested in
helping then let me know. What I'll do then is as we get more visibility into
activity, I'll shoot out an email to those interested and we can play it by ear.

Here's what I do know right now:

August 30th OR 31st (depending upon people's schedule)
Drive to the beautiful Napa hills and prune some vines that we'll harvest later.
We're going to do some pre-harvest fiddling to make sure that the grapes we get
at harvest are in top shape. You'll get some pruning shears and some basic
instruction and off you go. After this, we can go back to SFand I'll feed you
and liquor you up.

September 6th.
Unload/Sort/Crush/Press, load in stabilization tank in SF. Our very first
grapes of the season are chardonnay (don't worry, the rest will be syrah and
pinot noir... maybe some cab if I have enough help). This should be fun as
well. More food/wine.

September 13/14 and/or 20/21
Most likely we'll be getting in the syrah one or both of these weekends.
Unload... maybe even pitchfork the fruit out... sort, crush, put in
stabilization tank. As always, food/wine.

Mid-October
Pick pinot noir grapes from the vineyard we pruned on August 30th/31st. This
involves a very early morning drive to Napa in a big truck, giving everyone
pruners and 35 pound picking bins, cranking on latino musica and working the
vines. Then we hop back into the truck(s), bring it back to SF and do the thing
we did with the syrah.

There may be some more stuff, but that's the gist.

Thanks, ...Michael




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