I’m driving a forklift and a tractor but the product is very white-collar. She describes it as a winemaker’s version of triage, pivoting around the whims of nature to ensure the fruit completes its journey to the bottle.Īnd despite wine’s highfalutin reputation, the behind-the-scenes isn’t glamorous. A key part of her job is procuring the fruit before inclement weather hits, and navigating when it does. She talks about the monsoons and dealing with unpredictable weather. It’s why Ide is speaking from Elgin, about three hours south of her north Scottsdale home. It’s when the picking, processing, bottling, and shipping for the latest vintages happens. Late summer to early fall is the peak season for winemakers. I just do my best to usher it through,” she says. Lonestar forklift manual#For two or three months of the year, she is mostly a one-woman-show handling duties ranging from punch downs and monitoring fermentation to hauling two tons of grapes and pressing them in her 1970s-era manual presser. Ide purchases fruit from vineyards in the Sonoita-Elgin and Willcox areas, where the vast majority of Arizona grape varieties are grown. “I like going to everyone, asking how their family is, what’s going on with them," she says. There are three distributors vying for her business, but she’s not sure. Ide delivers cases to establishments herself, skipping the middleman. “These little shops and small businesses are my bread and butter,” she says. Vino Stache has made its way from wine festivals into wine stores including ODV Wines, Arcadia Premium, Genuwine, and Far Away Wine & Provisions, along with independent restaurants such as Southern Rail, Beckett’s Table, and FnB. Over the last three years, the Phoenician-turned-Southern Arizona winemaker has quietly grown her small business. Lonestar forklift professional#She started her career as a professional volleyball player, before turning to the corporate world. But for my micro-boutique winery, my feet are all I need,” Ide says.īut Ide hasn't always been stomping grapes. “I am sure there are machines for large commercial wineries. This is a serious part of how the winemaker and winery owner has done business since opening her Elgin-based operation in 2019.įoot stomping, Ide explains, is an easy way to extract enough juice to start fermentation for a whole cluster-style wine, which her bottled Graciano will be. While comical, it's not merely for laughs. “You sanitize your feet and get right in there,” Ide says enthusiastically from Vino Stache Winery in southern Arizona. “The main reason why I kept the company going this long was because it provided jobs for a lot of people,” Magarin said.Thirty seconds before answering the phone, Brooke Lowry Ide was standing in a huge fermenting bin foot stomping grapes. Interest rates are going up, the price of parts has tripled and the cost of new equipment is outrageous.”Īccording to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER data, Lone Star Dedicated has 102 power units and 86 drivers. The company is still profitable but the margins are getting thinner and thinner. “I don’t like what’s coming down the pike. “At this point, I am just getting rid of a headache,” Magarin told FreightWaves. Lonestar forklift drivers#Lone Star Dedicated once had more than 150 drivers and hauled oil field equipment, but Magarin said he was forced to downsize and pivot to pulling reefers because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s nearly 90 drivers were notified Friday that the carrier would be closing its doors after 12 years in business. David Magarin, president and owner of Lone Star Dedicated, confirmed Monday that he’s shutting down the trucking company, which hauls refrigerated food nationwide, this month.
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