By Ian Consoli
Every year, we sit down with our harvest interns to learn about their wine journey and what brought them into the cellar at Tablas Creek. This year's batch of interns each brought a level of enthusiasm to the cellar that made each of their presences known from day one. Whether introducing themselves to our team in the office, enjoying a taste of wine with our tasting room team, or asking for pointers on how to use the espresso machine, the 2024 harvest interns, Austin, Elena, and Rachel, made it known that they are thrilled to be here.
With that first impression in tow, I sat down with each of them to find out their past, their journey into wine, and their ambitions going forward. The singular theme that stood out was their level of intention towards their journey into making a career in wine. They may have come from different backgrounds, but each of them caught the wine bug, and they have every motivation to make it their life's work. They are fantastic. I can't wait for you to meet them:
2024 Harvest Interns: (from left) Austin, Rachel, Elena
Who are you?
My name's Elena. I'm an intern here at Tablas Creek, working Harvest for 2024.
I'm Rachel. I'm one of the amazing interns at Tablas Creek!
I'm Austin Gambler. I live in Cayucos, California and I'm a harvest intern at Tablas Creek.
What's your story?
Elena: I grew up in Long Beach, California, and I moved up to this area seven years ago to go to college at Cal Poly. The Central Coast has been my home ever since. My undergraduate degree was in finance and business administration. I worked as an investment advisor for a couple of years before going back to school for environmental science and diving into the wine industry.
Rachel: I'm from Newport Beach, California. I went to Cal Poly and have been away for a while, and now I'm back on the Central Coast and loving it. I studied animal science and fell into wine while traveling around the world. I lived in Prague for a year, and then I taught English. I lived in New Zealand for three years and worked in wine there.
Austin: I grew up in Birmingham, AL and moved to San Luis Obispo County in 2015 to attend Cal Poly. I was really inspired by the California coast and the culture out here and wanted a change. I studied biochemistry, and after I finished, I got into wine.
So how'd you get into wine?
Elena: It started as a hobby, just going wine tasting with friends and my boyfriend. I always felt an affinity towards the people pouring for us in the tasting room and a little bit of jealousy. I wondered, "why do you get this super fun job?" So, while in grad school, I decided to take a part-time job pouring in a tasting room; the rest was history. I just really fell in love with being able to teach people about wine and tell stories about wine, and then my curiosity just kept going and going. The next step was to work a harvest. So here we are.
Rachel: My first job was when I was in college at Cal Poly and I worked at a tasting room in Paso when I was 21. I didn't know anything about wine, but I just loved it. I liked talking to people, and then I started traveling. I knew I wasn't going to be a vet, so I was like, what am I going to do now? When I went to New Zealand, I worked at a winery and was like, oh, this is awesome. Cause I get to use my science brain that I loved from studying a lot of chemistry and working with animals. And then it's also such a social thing and I love traveling so you can travel around the whole world with wine.
Austin: I grew up in a half-Italian, half-Jewish family, so wine has always been around for me. My family on my mom's side is from Sicily, and I feel like that comes with a really strong wine culture. Then, moving to this area and getting into the farm-to-table movement, I was able to bike downtown to the grocery store and see, oh, this wine's made in my backyard. That's pretty cool. I want to get into that. I felt like I had a pretty strong draw to microbiology in school, and it's one of the biggest parts of wine, so that's where the initial interest started.
Have you worked a harvest before?
Elena: Nope. This is my first harvest.
Rachel: This is my fourth harvest. The first one was in Marlborough, New Zealand. The second was in Germany, and the third was in Central Otago in New Zealand, so two in New Zealand.
Austin: I've done a couple harvests now. For some, I made my own wine in my garage or helped farm some vineyards for some friends. But this is my first official cellar harvest, processing a lot of fruit, and seeing how everything moves.
How did you end up working at Tables Creek?
Elena: I worked at another Regenerative Organic vineyard down in Santa Barbara County and poured for Charlie from the tasting room at Tablas. He noticed my passion for regenerative agriculture and recommended I follow Tablas Creek on social media. That was my first time learning about Tablas Creek. Shortly after, I saw an email that Jason was coming to do a tasting down in Goleta. I had a class that night, but I rushed out and caught Jason right as he was leaving the wine bar. I introduced myself and inquired about a harvest internship. He gave me Chelsea's contact information. We had a Zoom call that week and really hit it off.
Rachel: I visited California with my mom and friend, and I came for a tasting. I love biodynamics and the whole regenerative ag sort of thing. So, I did a tasting and then met the winery crew. This was last harvest. And I realized I would love to work in California. So I talked to Chelsea and then did an interview, and then here we are a year later.
Austin: Yeah, I feel like, shortly after starting in the industry here, Tablas was pretty high on my list. I did a tasting here, probably six months into getting into the wine industry in 2021. I had never done a wine tasting or anything like that. I was super keen to learn, and I had the most educational experience by far at Tablas as far as the history of the area, wine history, varietal history and blending. I was pretty inspired by that. That really resonated with me.
How's it going so far?
Elena: It's going great. It has really opened my eyes. I mean, I knew it was a lot of work to make wine, but I mean, it is so much work to make wine. It's really awesome to see how much everybody cares about making a quality product, from starting in the vineyard to the grapes coming into the cellar. Everyone is super intentional every step of the way, cleaning everything thoroughly, setting everything up properly and then processing all the fruit we started getting.
Rachel: Amazing. So good. The team is awesome. And yeah, it's good. Lots of different beautiful-looking fruit so far, so it's exciting.
Austin: I'm absolutely loving it. I didn't even have a cup of coffee this morning, and I'm absolutely frothing. Every time we have fruit around, I'm just excited and hyped up, and it gives me a lot of energy. So I'm in my happy place.
What's the best bottle of wine you've ever had?
Elena: I think what makes a good bottle of wine is good company and good food. Before I moved up here and was still living in Santa Barbara in grad school, one of my friend's partners had worked several harvests. They invited us over to bring a couple of bottles of our own, and they would share some of theirs with us. Then, we would just have a wine night and enjoy the food they cooked. Jared had worked two harvests in New Zealand, so he shared a bottle of Clos Henry Sauvignon Blanc, a place where he had worked harvest. It was totally different than any wine I had had before. It was super aromatic and just delicious, and there was a great story to go along with it. He smuggled it in his suitcase; some bottles were lost, but this one made it. Hopefully, I can return the favor once we have some 2024 wines in bottle.
Rachel: I think that question can be answered in terms of the actual wine, but I see it as the experience. I was in the Dolomites in Northern Italy, and I was with my mom and my best friend, and we had hiked for 10 hours up the Alps, and we got to this little Rifugio, which is this little hut in the mountains, and we had this bottle of wine as we sat looking at the sunset. We had been hiking the whole day, and then you're in the top of the mountains, enjoying this bottle of Lagrein from a local producer and just looking over the Alps at all the things that we'd hiked, and it was awesome. And I also love bubbles.
Austin: I think it's kind of hilarious, but I think I'm going to say it's the first wine I ever made. I'm not saying it's the most delicious wine I've ever tasted, but it was rewarding after farming the vineyard with a good friend. We made a sparkling wine like a pet nat. I was really interested in that, especially as a chemist, getting all my numbers and calculations and trying to capture that native ferment at the right time so the bottle's not exploding. And so we have bubbles. That first bottle we opened was just perfect bubbles coming out, and I was so stoked. I think I cried because I was like, it worked!
And what's next for you?
Elena: I'm definitely committed to working in the wine industry. I really like sharing stories about wine, and I really like teaching people about wine and helping the wine business thrive. Maybe something where I can help connect people to that story and, through that, help them learn to enjoy buying and drinking wine. I like being a part of that whole cycle, so I'll be looking for a job in that realm after harvest.
Rachel: I'm thinking of going to Australia. I definitely want to be a winemaker. I know that for sure. And I still want to travel more, so I'm thinking maybe going to Australia next or South America. But as of now, I'm unsure. Stay tuned.
Austin: I would love to visit the Rhone after working here and see the origins of how we do things. I feel super lucky to work with old-world equipment, like beautiful wooden uprights and foudres. As far as winemaking goes, I am looking at doing a southern hemisphere harvest in Chile. I did one in New Zealand last year. But Chile, to me, is calling a little bit more than somewhere like Australia or maybe even South Africa because, from everything I've heard, it seems and feels like it has this old-world kind of grip on it.
Anything else you want to share with the Tablas Creek audience?
Elena: Just that the wine here is amazing and the people are even more, well, I won't say even more amazing, but the people are amazing, and it makes the wine even greater because there's just so much love going into every single part of the cycle in every bottle of wine.
Austin: Before I started here, I was invited to the Esprit vertical tasting from 2000 to 2023. Jason and Chelsea were leading the tasting, and Jason was like, "alright, who was here for the first Esprit release?" And there were multiple people in the room who raised their hands. I thought that was the coolest thing. There's something really special happening here. Tablas is a benchmark for California winemaking and viticulture. I think that's a really beautiful thing and something worth getting involved in at any point. Being a part of something bigger than all of us is making an impact. Being somebody who supports that says a lot. So keep drinking the wine. It's made really well - responsibly and sustainably. Enjoy.