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Diary of a Willamette cellar rat – part 1

Samantha Cole-Johnson in Willamette barrel room

Samantha Cole-Johnson, who submitted the recently published Portland for wine lovers in our 2019 wine travel writing competition (vote here for your favourite), begins a series of reports on life as an intern at an Oregon winery during the 2019 harvest.

I figured out why work pants need six pockets and a loop. It’s because harvest interns are infinitely more useful when they have a knife, a notepad, a couple of sharpies, some pens, tape, a multiple event timer, a wine key and a flashlight on them. Those call for about five pockets. The sixth is extra for when your...