I Work for Free Wine

 

I had the most amazing experience yesterday.  A few weeks ago I saw an ad on my former school's web site calling for volunteers to work a wine Competition.  There were promises of free lunch, free parking and free wine.  I'm in, right?

When I arrived at 9am, there was a small room filled with hundreds and hundreds of wine bottles waiting to be judged.  This was even more glorious than I imagined.  I started off by opening dozens of bottles of wines with the not the best corkscrew, but I persevered.  Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to another volunteer who I would be working with.  This was her 7th year participating and she was just as anal as I was.  We made sure that all the wines were organized for our panel of judges, wines opened, paper trivet's labeled (the thingy's that go around the bottom of the wine glass with labels identifying the wine) and we were ready to go at 10am.

There were 6 tables of judges and each table or panel had their own volunteers and wines to judge.  Most of the judges were buyers in the industry.  They were able to judge on price, varietal and country.  Everything else, was up to them.  If they wouldn't buy it, the wine did not get a medal.  If they would buy it, then they had to decide if it was a bronze medal, silver medal, gold medal or double gold medal.  A double gold medal was awarded if everyone at the table agreed that it was superb.

I don't know why, but I had a ball.  Pouring, organizing, delivering the wine to the judges, hearing their scores and then going back and starting all over again.  It reminded me why I went into the wine business in the first place - for FUN!

We broke for lunch and we were able to talk with the judges and other volunteers.  I was surrounded by amazing people.

After lunch we started the process all over again until we finshed at 2:30pm.  I'm sure our judges were exhausted.  They had started with all the reds, moved to rose, then white, sake, fruit wines and dessert wines.  They had wines from Kentucky, Minnesota, China, Japan, Nevada, California, Australia, etc and it was an interesting array of wines.  And this was just OUR table. 

When it was all over, it was our turn to taste all the wines.  Being in the business, I was able to pinpoint the high end stuff first and start there.  We all tasted the winners and the losers weren't so shabby either.  Once all of the tallies were in, the judges came back to look at their wines and taste other panels.  The big winner at our table was a $8 Malbec from Argentina. I was shocked to see that some of the "better" items did not medal at all.  

After some time, it was announced that all the volunteers could take home one case of wine - unopened wine!  I pounced on the good stuff first and grabbed some winners from my own tasting.  As I said my good-byes, the Director told me that I should take a case of opened wine.  I told him that I couldn't carry it all to my car so he offered me his hand truck.  I could not pass this up!

2 cases of wine later, I headed home with the biggest smile on my face.  What a great day!

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The Art of the Wine Event

 

I love running wine events – dinners, walk-arounds, tastings, you name it.  They are very stressful, but I get an adrenaline high from them.  I have done everything from a 2-person wine dinner (awkward) to a bar-type wine tasting for 150 people.  I would love to tackle a larger tasting, such as one for the trade or a customer grand tasting.  This is strange coming from the woman who didn’t want to plan her own wedding.  I wanted to elope.  It would have been easier!

Even when I planned my mother’s 70 birthday 4 years ago, it was exciting.  Things went wrong – the decorations didn’t arrive in time and I had to scour every party store in 10 miles for luau decorations in the middle of winter.  The DJ I hired stepped out of the room during the big “surprise”, so that people weren’t aware she was walking in and then my star act got stuck in traffic and people didn’t want to stick around and stay.  It’s ok though.  Mom had Elvis all to herself and he serenaded her all night long.

With wine tastings/dinners you have to cost out the wine and the food to come up with ticket prices, advertise, get out on social media, get your guerilla marketing on, send e-mails, post flyers, send press releases,  get entertainment or a speaker, possible charity coordination, buy the food, get the wines in the fridge, make tasting sheets, etc, etc.

The most stressful and frustrating thing that happens is when people wait until the last minute to sign-up.  I’ve run $100 per person classes that sell out weeks in advance, I’ve had dinners I have had to cancel 24 hours before because I didn’t get many people to sign-up and then 2 hours later, 24 people want to sign-up and I’ve had tastings where 30 people walk in the door and pay extra without batting an eye.  I hear this from people who send out invitations to their weddings – people either wait or don’t respond at all.  This is just a wine tasting/dinner so, whatever.  I guess it's the sign of the times.

I was doing a class once for about 40 people at $60 per person.  I was the speaker and ill prepared, but I bumbled through it.  I had one guy who came in, sat down, proceeded to drink every wine at his seat, eat all the food on the table and once I started speaking, got up, created a ruckus and left.  I’m not very good when I get interrupted except when Chef Jamie Oliver interrupted me once, but that’s another story.

When the event happens, people usually, except for the guy I just mentioned, have a great time.  The more they drink, the more they buy and the happier everyone is.  But, on the day of the event, I get wedding day jitters.  I get nervous.  It’s just the last minute preparations that get me going crazy, barking out orders to everyone so that when the event finally starts, it’s like Mr. Rourke in Fantasy Island.  “Smiles everyone!  Smiles!”  And then…it’s all over and you clean up and hopefully like that one time, there is no puke to clean up and everyone gets home safely.  Yeah, I love running wine events.  Can’t wait for the next one!

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