A New Rhythm after the Chaos

Harvest, Hurricane Helene, and What's Next.

I looked up, and two months had gone by.

In August, I took a harvest job at Common Wealth Crush, a custom crush winery in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley AVA, processing grapes as they came in from various sites across the region.

The winemaker assigned me the task of collecting Brix levels and monitoring every active ferment in the cellar. I can say that I had a front-row seat to watching the grapes transform into wine. Also, it was a chance to familiarize myself with varieties rarely seen in California, like Petit Manseng, Chambourcin, and Muscadine.

We started early and broke bread at noon. I usually wrapped up my work around 2 o’clock and would join the rest of the cellar team in cleaning and preparation for the next day of processing. On good days, we were done before sundown and stuck around for a post-shift beer to ease our aching bodies.

Mid-harvest, I found a room to rent in a mountain town outside Charlottesville. It came with a twin bed and bookshelf, which I promptly filled with the boxes of books that had been sitting in my car trunk for four months. I thought I was almost out of the chaos of this year.

Then, on September 27, Hurricane Helene hit the Florida Coast.