Thursday, February 7, 2013

Wine Tasting Success

Monday evening Paul and I attended Startups HK's Chinese New Year party at California Vintage.  Our friend Allison and Anthony (guy who told us about Bali places) were there, loads of entrepreneurs, and amazing Cali wines.  It was a totally inspirational night.

Tuesday took it easy post tutoring, and then last night I hosted my first wine tasting!  Julia and I both led 9 random people who actually paid money to come all the way out to Kwun Tong the Wednesday before CNY to listen to us tell them about wine!  Greg and I kept saying this would have been unfathomable one year ago.  But here we are!  Woo.

It was so much fun.  I introduced the company and explained how to assess a wine during tasting (appearance, nose, palate) and then talked about our first wine, which was brand new to everyone, as we had just gotten it in.  It was ok, not my fav, but it was fun to show off my wine dork knowledge.  It was funny because one of our attendees, Eric, is an accountant studying his diploma level in WSET (the one I start in 2 weeks!!!).  He said it's way way way more difficult than he thought (and everyone knows its hard) and super ultra time consuming.  I'm still pumped and I totally have more opportunities since I'm in the industry.  Between meetings with negotiants, export managers, wine tastings, and blog writing, oh and the warehouse of wine I spend 50% of my day in, I have a bit of a leg up on the accountants.  

Then Julia led us through Burgundy, back to me for Tuscany, Julia for Bordeaux, and I wrapped it up in Rioja.  It was good practice and I feel I know where I need to focus in terms of public speaking.  

Today P ad I hit up a master class at the Flying Winemaker from Hayden of Tarras vineyards in Central Otago, New Zealand.  We had his lovely Sauv Blanc, followed by 4 Pinot Noirs.  They were all lovely and it was fun to go to a different kind of tasting, although Paul may disagree.  

ONE MORE DAY OF WORK.  And then it's BALI!!!!!!!

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