Tasting Wine part I

To be between jobs always sucked, not because you have no income, but it means you have to update your CV and do some odds and ends to survive. In a small town these odds and ends are practically non-existent and you can be lucky if you make enough money during a week to eat. But having friends in the local newspaper helps you to find out about jobs or temporary work before they get published. This was my case, getting laid off at my old job as a computer technician and the only way to actually have a roof over my head was to move into a spare room at my parents’ house. With my father being a foreman on a farm and my mother working at the bank as senior consultant, cash wasn’t really an issue, but they did decide that I will have to look after myself, so I went around doing anything from picking up garbage to cleaning pools.

Friday afternoon my one friend phoned me up, he told me that the local wine cellars would be recruiting help the next week for the harvesting season. I spent the weekend updating my CV and Monday morning the moment the offices for the cellars opened; I was there to hand in my documents. About two weeks later I got a call to come in for an interview, first off I was told that I was over-qualified for anything they had, then they started asking questions about my home, the hours I’m willing to work, if I have handed in my CV for any other work. After the interview the cellar manager shook my hand and thanked me for my time, I saw this as a bad sign and went home.

Imagine my surprise when my cellphone rang a week later and it turned out to be a call from the cellar, the person introduced herself as Martha Burnes, the vice-winemaker. She asked if I had any other job and when I said no, she said that I started on Monday. The next Monday I reported for duty, got pulled aside to sign a contract, get a security briefing, more papers to read through about the safety and security of the site, which had to be signed as well. It was no surprise when I got placed behind a computer, my supervisor a lady who had been working on the system for years, with her help I quickly got the hang of the program and the rest of the day was spent exploring the outside of the cellars, as there was nothing else to do.

I was checking out the tipping platforms with the receiving holes when I noticed a small figure in a lab coat struggling to carry two buckets with two ledgers under each arm. I hurried over and when I drew close I saw that it was a woman, now at 5’9” I’m not the tallest person around, but she was much shorter than me, around 4’7” or 4’8”. Her brown hair caught back in a ponytail and when she looked up at me, her brown eyes stood out clearly against her fair skin, she had a slight tan, but it was the type one gets during a vacation. The only part of her body I could really make out under the lab coat was her breasts, even though the coat was clearly too big for her, her breasts pushed the front buttons slightly open, under the hem of the coat I could make out her calves and the hiking boots on her feet.

“Hi, can I help you?”

She immediately placed down the two sealed buckets and straightened up, gathering the two ledgers,

“Yes please, if you could carry those?”

I had a few seconds to look at her face, while not model pretty, she had high cheekbones, full lips and a slender neck, her face had a slight bit of roundness to it, but I guess that was due to the fact that she was so short. I picked up the buckets, they were surprisingly light, but one would think that a person of her stature and on a wild guess, build, would struggle with the weight.

“Well lead on then.”

She led the way into the cellars and up a set of steel stairs to the second floor walkway, she pushed open a door and motioned me inside, it was some sort of storage room wedged in between four cement tanks over which there flowed water,

“Just place it down there next to the boxes.”

I placed the two buckets down and turned, giving her a smile,

“Thank you, I’m Martha.”

I shook the offered hand,

“It’s a pleasure, I’m Ryan.”

She snapped her fingers,

“The computer guy, they stuck you down at the weigh bridge.”

I nodded, actually surprised that she remembered,

“You almost came to work with me in the laboratory, but we got somebody with a bit more experience in that direction.”

I shrugged,

“Well the science part I only did back in school because it was either science or typing and I really didn’t want to become a secretary.”

She laughed,

“Well I have to go and get everything ready for tomorrow; I’ll see you around.”

She pulled the door closed and headed off for what had to be the laboratory; I retraced my steps back outside and continued my inspection of the cellars. The day passed without further incident, I saw Martha when she walked past the office every now and then, I also got time to get to know Ann, my supervisor, better. The next day my new knowledge of the system came to the test when the first loads of grapes came in, though it was not very busy, it was quite a steep learning curve when the work had to be done. During lunch I met the winemaker, also called Ryan and his fiancée Lucy, I realized that I should know these people since they lived in the same town as my parents, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing any of them before.

Once I got the hang of the system and the work, the days actually became boring since we only started with around ten loads a day, that meant ten loads in eight hours, they usually came in three or four at a time, so I had a lot of free time, which I spent tinkering around on the system, getting to learn more about it. By Friday I had set up the program to give a spreadsheet diagram of the grapes that came in, how much tons it was and at which times it came in, I of course didn’t want to get into trouble so I kept quiet about it, I had no idea if it was allowed or not, since I did re-write some of the program.

The following week we went from ten to fifteen loads a day, yet there were still hours of sitting around, it seemed that now that everything was busy, Martha had more time. She came around to the office, chatting with us as we worked, one day she came around without the lab coat and I was stunned, she wore a light brown shirt, with the cellars’ name on it and khaki shorts. She had a lithe build; a body most athletes would kill for, the only part of her that did not fit her body was her breasts. They jutted out against the shirt, the buttons straining to keep her shirt closed, yet one got a few glimpses of her white bra.

It took me quite an effort to look at her face when she spoke to me and not her very impressive chest. Two days later I met her husband, Vern, he also worked for the cellars, but he was some sort of consultant and was on the road most of the time. The funny thing was that he was only an inch taller than Martha; I could see why most people poked fun at the two of them behind their backs.