The Tradition Continues

written by: Parke Hafner
For the past 41 years, we have welcomed a French enology student into our home, and this year was no exception. Hugo Cases arrived on July 12 with a smile on his face and an eagerness to learn. Hugo grew up of his family’s farm just outside of Carcassonne where they grow grapes and olives and make wine as well as olive oil. His father, Henri, is the fourth-generation winemaker whose motto is, “There are places where you don’t just produce wine. You live it.”

Like our many of interns, Hugo took the classic French student tour of the West Coast before starting his internship. His three friends picked him up at SFO and they headed south to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks (“amazing”), over to Las Vegas (“overwhelming”), down to the Grand Canyon (“incredible”), back to LA (“enormous”), past Santa Barbara (“charming”), a quick night in San Francisco before arriving at our home.

We begin the internship with the most difficult, stressful and perhaps the most boring job…bottling! Difficult because every bottle has to be perfect; stressful because the machines run at a quick pace and us humans have to keep up and boring because each day you handle over 10,000 bottles. This year we did have a bit of an equipment snafu and due to the early harvest, we had to cram 10 days of bottling into 8. That translated into long, challenging days, but we did it. Typically, we have 2-3 weeks between bottling and harvest. This year, we had 3 days! It was a mad rush to clean up the bottling line, then prep and set up all the harvest equipment. Hugo never missed a beat…washing picking boxes, buckets, barrels…always willing to do more.

Hugo loves rugby and his hometown team, US (Union Sportive) Carcassonne. Almost every Friday, they have a match and Hugo and his friends gather to cheer on their team. Thankfully, US Carcassonne hasn’t lost a game. A dedicated athlete, Hugo has a rigorous exercise regime…he runs three times per week with his friends and swims on the days off. Sally, our labrador, loves it when Hugo goes to the pool. On the weekends when he is here, he joins me on bike rides through Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys.

Hugo and his friends have taken advantage of being in Northern California. Their weekend activities are classic Americana and sports related…Giants baseball, Cal vs UCLA football and best of all Sonoma County rodeo. The only glitch in attending these events is the price of the food. They always have opted to wait until after the event and hit "In and Out" on their way home.

Speaking of food, Hugo loves every kind of food, well everything except chocolate. And like most French, he has a set of food rules. For instance, you can never have chips after you eat fruit (which is something I do daily and the look on his face is always priceless.) Lunch is an amusing time because Kate and Grace are with us. Having grown up with French interns, they love trying to get Hugo to eat odd combinations. They made him a special sandwich – tuna fish and potato chips. I don’t think I would have eaten it, but he did so without hesitation.

It has been great fun to have Hugo join our family. His response to many questions is “Perfect” and that is what Hugo has been…Perfect…a perfect addition to the Hafner Vineyard Production team and to our family. We look forward to his next visit because as he has learned, our favorite interns are those who return every few years.