If I had a dollar for every person who’s ever said to me “Wow! You have so much passion and knowledge about wine! You should write a book/own a wine store/ be on TV/buy vineyard/maybe find another hobby not based on a controlled substance”…ok, I wouldn’t be a millionaire. But I would certainly have enough money to buy a 1er Cru level Burgundy. From a decent producer.
My first “ah ha” wine moment was back in 2003 over a bunch of cult-ish California Cabernet Sauvignons: Opus One, Heitz, Cain Five, Caymus, and Dominus. It was a work event, but these wines caused me to lose interest in schmoozing with my clients. I was far more interested in writing down the names of the wine and trying to figure out why I thought these wines were so much more special than anything I had tasted up to that point in my life. I mean, really, I had always noted whether a wine what white or red, but why did these stand out? Was it the smell (I think I read something once about how you should smell a wine)? Should I be paying more attention to legs – is that the clue? (Don’t you feel so fancy when you swirl?) Where can I get more wines like this?
That little episode pushed me to my corner liquor store that weekend and found out I couldn’t just buy these particular wines off the shelf. ‘Allocations? Well, why don’t they just make more?’ My widget-driven brain didn’t think it could be all that tough to reproduce a wine…right? Just get more grapes.
Wow. I had a lot to learn.
Work, work, work…
I started my own wine education with Kevin Zraly’s Windows on the World Wine School. Being the masochist that I am (I mean, I’m not an athlete, so I feel have to achieve something), that was shortly followed by a tour through the successive levels of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, Society of Wine Educators, and Court of Master Sommeliers, with side trips to University of California Davis Extension and Culinary Institute of America.
Yep. All this while keeping my ‘normal’ day job as a sell-side research analyst on Wall Street.
In 2008 I left my lucrative career and embarked in wine. Tentatively at first, but after a brief stint in wine retail and working a harvest on Long Island, I jumped in full time. First as a sommelier and now as a wine importer/distributor. I also teach wine classes around the New York City area and am studying for the Master of Wine exams (see? Masochist).
The feedback I get from a lot of the classes I teach is “where can I learn more”. Well, this blog could be a starting point. I want to use this blog to be a modest resource in your wine education as well as selfishly exercise my writing muscles.
Thanks for stopping by!
