So there was harvest, then there was crushing/destemming, and then there was a yeast addition. After all of that, I snapped my fingers, and my grape must and I appeared in Houston. Kidding! The day after adding yeast to my Alicante Bouschet grape must, I woke up at 5 am to drive back to Houston before the sun became too strong. Mr. B and I used a pallet + lift to hoist the tank up and load it into my brother-in-law’s Tahoe. Easy as 1-2-3.
And I drove off into the sunrise with the intention of getting back to Houston before the heat of the midday August sun.
So, it was just me, the road, my grapes, and ‘How I Built This’ (the podcast). I had a moment when I took a tight turn slightly too fast; I looked in the mirror to see the tank tilt for a second, but…four hours after leaving Mason, I arrived in Houston with grapes still in the tank! Phew!
Originally, I had hoped to arrive in Houston in the evening so that my husband and possibly neighbors could help me unload. But, I had to start driving in the dark, and I couldn’t leave my baby wine in the location where it spent its first night. So, I found myself in my driveway while everyone else was at work, all alone. Also, I had no keys. In my haste to get to Mason, I had left my keys in the house. Not good. Why you ask?! Because it was almost midday and those grapes needed to be in the mid ’70s for fermentation. The car was blowing air conditioning at full blast, but gas was running low…
After several frantic phone calls to my mother-in-law, I found the keys on the floor of the car. Phew! I could unload and get the baby wine into a location with the proper fermentation temperature. But, unloading 250 lbs + out of a car by myself was slightly challenging. Luckily, I had Lil’ Red, a scissor lift with a capacity up to 600 lbs.
This is Lil’ Red,
Ready for the Tank
Tank Safely Removed
Done. Out of the car! But, I had made a fatal mistake. From the driveway to the garage, there is a lip about an inch and a half tall. Lil’ Red was not going to make it. Not a chance. Lil’ Red is 160 lbs and she was carrying another 200+ lbs. I should have backed the car up to the lip. It was getting hotter by the minute. No chance I would let the baby wine die. So, I let Lil’ Red down as low as she would go (about 6 inches off the ground) and shimmied the tank onto the floor of the garage. I closed the garage door and slowly got the tank to the doorway going into the house. But, there was another hurdle…
I can dead lift at least 175 lbs and I can bench 140 lbs, but the tank and baby wine was too heavy for me alone. If only I had backed the car up far enough… I could have kept the tank on top of Lil’ Red and shimmy the tank into the house. So, I made another frantic phone call to my mother-in-law, and she sent my father-in-law! But, I could not let my baby wine sit in the 80+ degree temp of the garage for the 15 minutes he needed to arrive. So, I used some stored knowledge to get the baby wine into the 74 degree temps.
Using Past Learning 
To Solve Current Problems 
So Much Learning
Five minutes later, the baby wine was in the house! Phew! My father-in-law arrived shortly thereafter, and we moved the baby wine into its new home, the office.
So just HOW did you get the wine into the house? How long before this product is drinkable? Only 357 of my froends wish to know!😉
I tilted the tank one way, put a book underneath, tilted the tank the other way, put a book underneath, etc. until it was high enough to get over the step into the house. Drinkable is a matter of opinion!
You need to write a book about this someday!