Working at the Distillery
Last summer, I rose
before dawn, crept
through the house still
pregnant with sleep,
pulled on tattered jeans,
a stained sweatshirt,
a baseball cap
ragged with wear,
grabbed my coffee and lunch
from the fridge, and drove
south to Watsonville
to unload grapes
in the early morning light.
All day, I shoveled them
into the destemmer,
then into the juicer,
the golden liquid
sweeter than ambrosia.
I filled tanks to ferment,
piled the empty stems
picked clean onto
the compost heap,
refilled the tank on the fork-
lift, hid the keys,
and followed the sun
that had already set,
chasing the low glow
at the horizon
as the stars came out,
constellations
I could hardly raise
my eyes to see.
Copyright © 2026 by Jake Young. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 22, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“In my twenties, I worked in the Santa Cruz Mountains for a winemaker and fell in love with that world. My last summer in California, before moving to Missouri, I worked the crush for a distiller and helped turn that year’s harvest into wine, and eventually brandy. I found the alchemical transformation itself intoxicating—tasting the fresh juice pressed from the grapes, smelling it ferment in the cellar. What I remember most, though, is the satisfaction of working fourteen- or sixteen-hour days throughout the harvest, and the gratifying weight of exhaustion each night.”
—Jake Young
Jake Young
