Happy Friday,
If you’re reading this, congratulations. You’ve self-selected into the world of wine learning.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a big reward for you.
I’m giving you a job.
As a part of this newsletter community, it is our job to open the door to wine learning.
You need to feel empowered to be the Willy Wonka of Wine and give everyone a tour of the wonders of the wine factory.
The problem: Who deserves the Golden Tickets?
Even our obnoxious, self-centered friends deserve a chance at learning how wine can change their lives.
So, today, I’m showing you how to deal with the unruly personalities of soon-to-be wine learners.
Let’s exploit their bad nature to show them the world of wine imagination.
Augustus is too busy drinking to taste and appreciate wine. You need to slow him down. |
Augustus Gloop
This friend is VERY into wine. They’ve fallen into the bottle.
Their gluttonous behavior gets in the way of learning anything.
In order to curb their slamming wine, you have to give them something else to focus on.
Enhance their wine learning with the power food and wine pairings.
Cook together and share the meal afterward with a bottle of wine you picked out.
Help them see the beautiful connection between wine and food.
She’s talking about Caymus, right? Ever-demanding Veruca needs to chill out. Put her to the test with a blind tasting. |
Veruca Salt
We’ve seen this person at the restaurant. Even worse, we’ve been seen with this person at the restaurant.
They are demeaning to everyone, and they act that their opinion is above everyone else’s.
The best thing you can do with this person is blind tasting.
Dull their demands by heightening their senses.
Encourage them to find the Caymus about multiple Cabernets.
If they’re able to pick out their favorite wine, then let them have it. Otherwise, lesson learned.
Violet needs to hold all the records. So rather than win something, why not let her be the judge? |
Violet Beauregarde
Violet is telling you about the most expensive wine they drank or how many points their bottle received.
Annoying and competitive, it’s time to see it they can walk the talk.
Violet isn’t that far from being a great wine learner, but she needs to formulate her own opinion.
Encourage her to start keeping a wine journal and create her own scoring systems.
Hopefully, that doesn’t leave her blue in the face.
Mike is all over the place. Share wine movies with him. |
Mike Teavee
Mike is “too busy for wine.” It’s a lousy excuse because all that time binge watching Netflix could have been more productive.
So, it’s time to bombard Mike’s queue with wine movies.
• Sour Grapes – A documentary about wine fraud
• Somm – Follow the journey of hopeful Master Sommeliers
• Bottle Shock – The fictionalized version of the 1976 Judgement of Paris
These will get him interested to learn more about wine.
Charlie Bucket
You’re Charlie. The factory is yours.
But, what are you going to do with your Golden Opportunity to learn more about wine?
The best thing you can do is help others.
To review, here are the 4 activities to help strengthen your relationship with even your worst wine friends:
- Cook a meal together and share wine and conversation to make them slow down.
- Coordinate a blind tasting to curb their demands.
- Show them how to journal and rank wines on their own so they are less reliant on critics.
- Watch wine movies and documentaries together so they can absorb while facts with captivating stories.
This Week’s Free-Run Juice
*free-run juice is a wine term for the grape juice that comes from their own weight prior to pressing. These are weekly tidbits that came out from my own wine reading.
Le Creuset Wine Cooler Sleeve: Is it worth the squeeze?
I’ve mentioned before how much I love the Vaccu Vin wine coolers.
My biggest knock is that they aren’t the sexiest looking wine cooler on the block.
Because you know looks matter when it comes to wine psychology, you may want to upgrade your game.
This wine cooler sleeve is a great piece to add to your kit.
More Women Winemakers…Hooray!
I was thrilled to see Shauna Rosenblum named Lytton Springs winemaker for Ridge.
She’s a Zinfandel master having led the team at Rock Wall Wine Company for 14 years. Beyond that, she’s been helping with winemaking since 3 years old.
You’re either born into this industry or you fall in love with later. Shauna is the former.
👋 Shout out to Carles, an avid newsletter reader, who suggested a section where I highlight a piece of wine equipment or wine region on a weekly basis. I hope you enjoyed “Is It Worth The Squeeze?”
I love your feedback and ideas! Hit reply to send yours thoughts on how to make this newsletter better.