It’s Harvest Season 🍇
Happy August!
I’m now entering my 3rd month here in Napa, can you believe it?
There’s been so much that I’ve learned already since working in the production side of the winery business as a harvest intern. Some of the projects have included bottling, working with barrels: steaming, cleaning, swelling, repairing etc., and sanitizing wine tanks—I’ve even entered the inside of a 4,000 gallon wine tank 👀
A lot of the wine making process is cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning—and of course tasting 🍷👌🏾. Cleaning is a large part of the process which makes sense because wine is a consumable product.
Since being here I have visited a variety of wineries for tastings within Napa Valley ranging from family estates, urban wineries, tasting rooms and vineyards. It’s been a lot of fun and I have gotten to taste some incredibly made wines.
If you’ve been following my journey on Instagram (@jazmineladouceur | @noirewinelounge) you’ve seen the amazing wine makers of color that I’ve been meeting with. Some of the winemakers have included: Thomas T Thomas of Thomas T Thomas Vineyards, James Moss of J. Moss Winery, Fah Sathirapongsasuti of Sunset Cellars, Jason Mikami of Mikami Vineyards, and Theodora Lee of Theopolis Vineyards. I even had the honor of hosting winemaker and proprietor of L’objet Wines, Dan Glover! I made lunch and he brought over bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and a 2016 & 2019 Pinot Noir (chefs kiss 🤌🏾) for us to enjoy!
…the exciting news
To continue my pursuit of education and knowledge about wine I decided to apply to a program through the organization Wine Unify to pursue WSET Level 1. Last week I was notified that I was selected!!
As a recipient of the 2022 Welcome Award, I will be receiving collective mentorship from some amazing wine professionals including the Co-Founder of Wine Unify, Dylnn Proctor (who was the Associate Producer of the movie Uncorked and is currently the sommelier on Hart to Heart hosted by Kevin Hart), WSET Level 1 courses conducted by Napa Valley Wine Academy, glassware and funding for wine. Although becoming a sommelier is not my goal, gaining more knowledge is. Pursuing this education only enhances my understanding and will also contribute to the knowledge I’ll impart into the Noire Wine Lounge experience.
I’m grateful to be building and cultivating community through relationships with some amazing people in wine, it’s already been an enriching experience.
As you may have guessed based on the picture below, Harvest will officially begin for us any day now. Excited for #myfirstharvest 🙌🏾
