My dad got me my first cellar job. He was managing Buena Vista Winery and I was pumped and ready to learn how to make wine there. It was old school. No stainless steel or refrigeration then. There were less than 250 wineries in all of California and today there are over 2500. I was 23. Enologists were pretty rare and generally seen as not all that necessary. I reported for my first day of work on April 1, 1972 to winemaker, Al Brett. He was Irish, tough as nails and a merry prankster at heart. I hated him and I loved him and never knew anybody quite like him. He taught me how to make wine.

At the time there were two other cellar workers – Pete and Earl. I was the third man on the crew. Winery owner, old UPI pressman, Frank Bartholomew had hired them to assist Al make the wines. Pete was a super sweet gentle sole who reminded me of Lenny in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. He was sort of what you might call a simpleton and a hell of a hard worker. He drank a thermos of onion soup everyday for lunch. He smelled bad and didn’t care. He wore a watch but couldn’t tell time. When asked what time it was Pete looked at his watch and always replied, “ Damned if it ain’t!”

Earl was basically nuts. He would torment Pete, which bothered no one else but me. He relished in treating Pete and I like inferior subordinates and ordered us around. Earl drank a lot. He pilfered wine everyday and maintained a constant buzz. He’d head down to Ted Von Sidow’s bar down the street after work to drink some more. Earl showed up to work with different colored hair every now and then. Earl had a big red nose.

Al Brett, Buena Vista’s winemaker, put me right to work bottling. Bottling was really considered punishment work. If you screwed up you bottled. That’s just how it worked. Al was not impressed with my family connection to Buena Vista and could have cared less. Although I had done nothing wrong I was immediately summoned on my first day to bottle. The corker was a mechanical relic – an antique even then. It was manufactured by the Ermold Manufacturing Company, New York, New York circa 1915. I starred at that brass nameplate for more hours than I want to admit. This is what I went to college for? It totally sucked.