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One Day Story – Jacob Holman
I spent a day with Les Bourgeois wine maker Jacob Holman during the winery’s “off season” in February of 2012. During the day he transferred Pink Fox into a new tank and prepared trials of Traminette for a tasting the following day.
Jacob Holman is the wine maker at Les Bourgeois winery, a career path he didn't envision leaving college. "I have a biology degree," he said. "But I always thought that I would end up laying in a field counting geese or something."
Holman directs Gary Paxton as the two prepare to transfer the current vintage of Pink Fox into new tanks at Les bourgeois' new production facility. Pink Fox is Les Bourgeois' blush wine, made from Catawba grapes.
Holman moves along the production facility's catwalk during the transfer of Pink Fox to its new tanks.
Holman monitors the level of the wine as it fills the tank. He is watching a "tank tape" that hangs into the tank and marks the proper fill level of the Pink Fox. Later in the process, Holman will fill the excess space with sugar to help give the wine its characteristic sweetness.
Holman moves a pile of hoses in Les Bourgeois' new production facility. The multi-million dollar facility which houses the winery's storage, bottling and manufacturing operations opened in 2011.
Holman heads out to pick up ice for his work in the laboratory. The only ice maker is a half mile away at the Blufftop Bistro, the winery's restaurant.
Vials filled with Traminette are lined up in Les Bourgeois' laboratory. Holman is preparing several different variations of the wine for a blind taste test the next day with other members of Les Bourgeois' staff. The results of that test will determine the consistency of the wine for this year's vintage.
Holman has a cigarette with head wine maker Cory Bomgaars outside of Les Bourgeois' tasting room. The building which once used to be a diner, housed the entire wine making operation until the opening of the new production facility last year.
Speaking of Les Bourgeois… Who won an award from SABEW today?
This kid.
The last time I went out to cover a story at Les Bourgeois was last summer for the Missourian. Marty Steffens, a professor at MU saw it and entered it into the SABEW (Society for American Business Editors and Writers) Best in Business contest for 2011. Turns out it won an honorable mention in the student category. Which I am assured is very similar to 2nd place.
They announced their winners today (click here) – and the professional winners are pretty heady, with the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and LA Times pretty well represented. Anyway, my name is clear at the bottom. Thanks to both my mother, Jeanne Abbott, and Katherine Reed for helping to edit the story prior to publication.
One Day Story – Back to Les Bourgeois
For my one day story I spent a day with the Jacob Holman, the wine maker at the Les Bourgeois vineyard in Rocheport, Mo.
On this day, Jacob spent time preparing wine for tasting in his lab. He then went over to the new production facility to switch the 2011 vintage of Pink Fox – made from Catawba grapes – from one tank to another.
Stadium and Rollins
Injury accident around the corner from my house, thought I would take some pictures.
Interview with Alison Hays
Alison went to school at Truman State University where she began playing rugby. Now, she lives and works in Columbia, but still plays on a club team – The Black Sheep.
Peter Essick
Having National Geographic photographer Peter Essick talk to the class was nice. He showcased a lot of his environmental photographic stories, starting from his earlier days with the publication up to recent projects he is currently working on.
I like the idea of doing landscape, outdoor, environmental photography – as it lends itself to the type of places I enjoy being. I also found it inspirational, making me think of trying to tackle more ambitious projects, like delving into the environment and people of Alaska – my rarely visited birthplace. Like Essick himself said though, “it’s hard to know where to start.”
My reporting blog post
During my first day of report I went down to Cooper’s Landing to check out flooding on the road. I talked to Mike Cooper about how his business would be effected and shot some pictures of the overflow. The fun part was driving my new truck across the flooded part of the road.
On the Fourth of July, I went to Eagle Bluff’s Conservation area to watch Einstein the eagle get released. I spent most of the time milling with attendees finding what had drawn them to that remote riverfront spot. While the story was about the eagle, I think it became more about the community that had come to watch his release.
My story on Buddy Packs came out as a result of another story I was doing on charitable donations. I thought it was newsworthy that there were so many eligible kids, but so few receiving the benefits of the program. However, it didn’t fit into the other story I was working on, so I did a little off-shoot story.
The charitable donation story was something I picked up off the KC Star website. It seemed like a good idea at the time to talk to non-profits and see how things were going in Boone County, but it ended up dry and numbers heavy. I wouldn’t recommend reading it unless charitable donations are what really interest you.
The story on Les Bourgeois’ new facility, however, was probably the crowning piece of my summer. I spent a couple of weeks out at the winery taking pictures and interviewing for this one. I am very happy with the end result and proud to have it entered into a student business writer competition. Additionally, it served as the basis for my multimedia project as well.
One of the more fun stories I had the opportunity to write was the Cole County Jail piece. I had the opportunity to go and sleep over in the jail for a night and then write about my experiences. The story itself was only a little bit about the jail and I thought it succeeded because it focused on the personalities of people that also chose to spend a night at the facility. This story was also picked up by the AP, which was pretty cool.
I wrote two stories concerning the heat wave that came through the Midwest. The first dealt with how the Harbor House, an entity of the Salvation Army, was helping homeless people survive in dangerous conditions. Mathews was helpful, but I did feel like I was given access to serve some other promotional purpose. In the end however, I believe it is important for issues facing the homeless to be brought to light – again and again if neccesary.
The other heat related story was straight forward and was more of a how to protect pets and animals in dangerous heat. Not a reporting masterpiece, but I consider it effective and important for the public considering the danger of the heatwave.
On a Wednesday afternoon in July I was sent on a mission to track down Richard King for an interview about why he was moving Summerfest from 9th Street. The whole event happened rather quickly and fortunately I had already spent the morning learning about the City Council’s decision on street closures. The afternoon unfolded in a frenetic pace as I ran downtown and back to the Missourian until Kathryn finally tracked down his cell phone number. I ended up interviewing him while sitting on a curb and getting the story in minutes before I had to be at work. I’m proud of what I was able to get done in limited time and thankful its accuracy checked out.
The next story I did that wasn’t a GA rehashing of a police crime report dealt with a water heater being given to Task Force 1. The companies responsible for the donation were easy to get ahold of and happy to talk. But try as I might, I could not get the Boone County Fire District or member of Task Force 1 to comment on the story. So I wrote it without them, which left the story really lacking any angle on the impact the water heater would have. I’m still a little annoyed that I couldn’t get any one to talk to me about this.
The Thomas Atkins Memorial Ballfield story was really an advance on the City Council, which I covered the following Monday. It was decent journalism, talked to the right people, got things situated and it all came out ok. But it wasn’t pivotal, it just was.
A GA shift yielded me the Peppers Night Club story about Karen Rowe getting picked up for several charges. I just had fun researching this one and talking to the Boone County Sherrif’s about the place. My lead got stripped away, unfortuantely, and I did get an email from an old MU grad about how to improve the story.
I wrote two articles about the National Trappers Convention at the Boone County Fairgrounds. The first was really just an advance to let people know what was happening. The second was written after I had a chance to spend part of a day at the convention. It was a strange atmosphere – very alien to what I know in my normal routine. To write the story in an unbiased way, I tried to just focus on what was happening around me (like the clubbing of turtles) and not pass judgment upon it. In the end, my goal was to paint the zany picture that was the convention.
My taxi stand story was what I pulled out of a rather un-controversial city council meeting. I talked to Terry Nickerson from Terry’s Taxis as well as a police officer who was reasearching the stands. The story, I think, covered what it needed to cover and worked. There was fallout from the reporting process, but no need to go into that here.
My final story was about a construction project near the airport getting underway. This was assigned to me last minute and I take issue with the fact that I was not given any time to research what was happening. This ground breaking had been public knowledge for a week and a reporter was sent out with 20 minutes warning and no prior knowledge of what was occurring. I was intimidated by the canvas of film crews and newspaper reporters because I like to have a set of information to build upon, and I was not thrilled that I should have had this info but didn’t. Anyway, I shot a picture of the ground breaking that might end up on Rep. Kelly’s website, but interviews were lacking.
All in all, I thought it was a challenging and busy, but fun summer.
robson abbott 