The day I squished the grapes

Fall in Georgia means grapes. Not literally, but grapes are everywhere. At every turn, you can see either grapes or grape products. One morning, I woke up to a flurry of activity on the porch outside my window. This flurry of activity was the harvesting and squishing of my host family's grapes. (I'm sure there's a more technical term than "squishing", but I'm not sure of it in Georgian or English, and squishing is a fun word, so I'm going with it.)

Alby and Zura hard at work

Naturally, I was excited and intrigued. The process was a bit different than I expected. Yes, that is a bathtub, which is pretty ingenious, since the juice drains perfectly out of the bottom into the collection bowl. But the funny part is that this is the only bathtub I've ever seen in Georgia. No one takes baths. It's either showers or buckets. I have no idea where this bathtub came from (or where it went after). It's a mystery. 

Action Shot

First, they let me watch, and then gave me some juice to drink (which was delicious!). I've had freshly squeeze orange juice, but never grape juice. I'm a fan. Then after a while of me hanging around and low-key begging to do it too, they let me put on the big work boots and give it a go. It was really fun, but harder than I expected. I had to move the bag around to make sure that I got the most juice out that I could. Also I had to make sure not to fall over (possibly the hardest of all the tasks) and stay to the back so that the tub didn't move forward. 

I finished up my bag and drank some more juice. I was feeling quite satisfied with myself until later that day when I learned that you shouldn't drink too much fresh black grape juice because there's something about the color/skin/juice that is too strong. Which I learned the hard way because I had quite the stomach ache that evening. So I literally drank myself sick on grape juice. It wasn't even wine. So I'm a lightweight, but a lightweight who regrets nothing.