10-4 Magazine February 2024

10-4 Magazine / February 2024 65 being loaded on his trailer, parked along a very steep and narrow country road. These were Concord grapes that were destined to be grape juice, not red wine, which they jokingly called “Amish Juice” (which is grape juice to be sold to the Amish community). Bill skillfully maneuvered the Astro up the steep hills with a load of 16 bins and headed for Swedish Hill, a winery located between the northern ends of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, roughly an hour’s distance. We were a little early arriving at the facility, so we had a short wait. Then, two guys with forklifts soon appeared and started unloading the bins onto a row on the ground next to the building. First, each bin was weighed and then brought over to a large tank to be dumped into. From there, the grapes went through a separator – the waste was sent to a large holding tank while the juice was pumped into tanks inside the building. The empty bin was then reweighed, and then the other forklift operator reloaded it onto Bill’s trailer. Each bin weighs about 225 pounds empty and can hold up to 2,500 pounds of grapes. The bins are about 4 feet by 4 feet by about 3.5 feet. This load weighed in at about 32,000 pounds. During the unloading, Bill was on the phone with the harvesters back in the vineyard where this load originated. Bill had plans to return to the winery with one more load the following day, which would be his last for the year. There is a limited amount of juice that the winery can process, so Bill had to make sure he didn’t pick up too much. After today’s unloading at Swedish Hill, the plan was to haul the drop deck back to Bill’s farm and then go just a few miles to where his other trailer had been loaded. Bill would hook up to that trailer and then haul the load home for the night, with plans to deliver that load the next morning. At 72 years old, Bill has now been driving for over 50 years, and the only other truck he’s ever owned was a 1969 Brockway 358 that he bought from his father. For a while, Culver worked for Penn Yan Boats and hauled 10-foot-wide vessels to New York City. He’s hauled other loads, including apples, and the other major NY state commodity – milk. He now prefers to keep to the Finger Lakes region and doesn’t see a need to haul long distances anymore. He and wife Hilary live in an old farmhouse where Bill lived as a child and have one daughter. He collects guns and has a sizeable toy truck collection, along with other antiques, as his mother was an estate antique dealer. A good amount of time is spent maintaining the vineyards, such as trimming and tying branches, which keeps Bill quite busy when not hauling grapes. n