Welcome to Keller Estate Winery! I drove up to Napa for the first time ever to photograph the staff of Keller Estate. Just 45 minutes from San Francisco, it was a different world, of gently rolling slopes of vineyards, or fields with frolicking lambs and Shetland (those little midget horses) ponies! I thought I would stop by that ranch on the way back, the ponies were so cute, but as it turned out I was too exhausted.
These photos are for the website. Not so much a head shot, said owner MK (above), but more like a profile of a person. People in their work habitat, to show off the functionings of the winery. I had tour of the various machines, and the cave dug into the hillside where wine is aged in barrels. I know nothing about wine making, and today I realized that one can get very geeky about wine making. It's not something I've ever before associated with geekiness - and I'm talking wine Making, not wine Tasting - but wine talk can be as geeky as say, guitar amp talk, biofuels talk, computer programing talk, classic English novels talk, camera lens talk. Well anywhere there's a passion, there are geeks.
The floor of the main room is a lovely brick red. This way, it's harder to notice any spilled wine. But I really like that color in the photos. Don't ask me what these machines are. I just climbed up on the catwalk and took photos.
This is the underside of the squishing machine. In olden days, I imagine a similar stream would squirt out from beneath a giant vat containing grapes and barefooted people stomping on them. No stomping people here - a large, metal, cylindrical press, squeezing the last out of... um. I forget what grape. Petite Sirah? Actually, they called it a berry, rather than a grape.