An Oaky, Buttery Day

Greetings Earthlings! Utley is still "on sabbatical", still contemplating my life, the future and just what it may hold. I've continuously been sub teaching here and there; finished up teaching middle school PE few weeks ago, but have worked my way into the Memorial High School English Dept. I am much more receptive to the subbing thing when I can plan my days in advance, rather than making the decision when a random phone call comes at 5:30 in the morning. Hence, the English Dept Chair at Memorial will shoot me a text whenever he needs me. Works out well in this golden age of "non-human" interaction. And please don't fret, I do have a couple days booked again to make my triumphant return to the world of middle school Phys Ed.

Quick story as to the methods of my madness: the other day I was "teaching" a Level 2 Mythology class to a group of HS juniors and seniors. I'd taught the same group the week before, so they knew I was "cool." Ha. I knew this group was rather talkative, so as I wrote the day's lessons on the chalkboard, I wrote the word SILENTLY in all caps, as in SILENTLY read chapters 4 and 5 and answer response questions at the end chapter. 15 mins or so pass and one of the students walked up to the board and erased the world SILENTLY. Hmnnm, you want to mess with me do you grasshoppper?! OK that works. "Have you ever seen The Simpsons?" I asked the student. Of course he said no, no student would ever give a straight answer. Indifferent to his answer I replied, "Doesn't matter. Since you seem to have an affinity toward to chalkboard, I'm going to write a phrase on the board, and I want you to copy it all over the board, until there is no room left." Figure I'd at least keep the student busy. So I approached the board and wrote, "I will not erase the teacher's meticulous instruction." And for the rest of the class, Spicoli over there copied the phrase all over the board, in nice neat lines. Bart Simpson style. At least I got some amusement out of the deal!

And now, for my latest gig: I am now working at a little shop in town called The Wine Studio. It's a 2 location little boutique wine and gift shop. Wine tastings every Thursday and Friday evening. I told the owner I'd be willing to work as much as possible. I am interested and do appreciate all things wine, and this will give me an opportunity to learn about the industry. And I believe this new gig will hopefully open some future doors...first, it will give me access to all the wine sales reps that frequent the store; who knows, maybe someday I will enter that side of the business. And 2nd, and I may be grasping at straws here, but the owner is "retirement"age and can't go on forever, so who knows, maybe someday I take over The Wine Studio, and satisfy that entrepenuerial inkling I have. So we shall see.

And now for a "tasting" of my day yesterday. I show up at the shop at 10am, and immediately as I enter, Mo, the owner says, "I hope you had breakfast today." Yes...."Because we have 2 groups of people coming in who would like us to taste their wine," she mentions. Well, twist my arm Mo! The first group entered shortly thereafter. It was a wine rep, who was accompanied Anthony Truchard. Who the F is that, you may be wondering? Anthony Truchard, of Truchard Wines...his family owns a 360+ acre vineyard in Carneros, CA. The bottles say Truchard on them. So this guy was serious. Big time, if you will. We walk to the "tasting table" and begin to get to work. Anthony pulls out 5 bottles, Mo pulls out 4 glasses. The rep pulls out her tasting notes. I stand there, smile and attempt to look sophisticated. As I said, Anthony had 5 wines from his vineyard for us to try. A Roussone, a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, a Syrah, and a Cabernet Sauvignon. We start in that order....as Anthony poured, I basically follow everyone's lead. Now, I have had nice wine and think I have a grasp on proper wine etiquette, but I'm no expert, that's for damn sure. After he finished the pour, we swirl the wine around the glass and then take a nice, deep whiff. Followed by a taste. I then nod, pretend as if I'm trying to distinguish the flavors, the oak, the berry, the chocolate, the tobacco, whatever it may be. I do look at the tasting notes and see if I can taste whatever it is that is supposed to be tasted. We go down the line, white to red, lightest to heaviest. Or biggest. It was very interesting to hear Anthony talk about his wines and the processes that go into making the wine and picking the right blend of grape to go into each batch. During wine tastings, a "spitter" is always available, for those who don't necessarily want to drink the wine, just taste. Well, I'm not that advanced yet, so I will drink my wine, thank you very much! He then signed all the bottles for Friday's tasting at the store then left. I then asked Mo if I embarassed her by the question I asked, which was if he thought the movie Sideways popularized the drinking of Pinot Noir. He said it did. I prefaced the question by saying, "Now, this may seem novice of me to ask, but..." Mo said I did not embarass her. Snap!

About an hour later, another wine rep and his "boss" or something came in, this time for us to tasted Prosecco. A sparkling wine, kind of in the Champagne family, just not as sweet. If that is correct. After tasted 3 different levels of Prosecco, we moved onto a couple Italian Reds, which I'd never heard of. But just hearing educated people speak of wine is an interesting experience. Words like approachable, tannens, oaky, buttery to name a few.

So I am enjoying The Wine Studio so far. And this is actually the first time I've ever worked retail, so at least I know how to work a cash register! And, as I said, who knows what doors may open in the future.

And, be assured that I will be reading the book Grapes and Wines next week as I sit by the pool. In St. Croix.