Bordeaux Master-Level Exam

The online programs of the French Wine Society are a model for truly interactive wine education. I passed the French Wine Scholar exam last year and signed up in March for the Bordeaux Master Program as Bordeaux is just an area I don’t know much about, and looking at past MW exams, it seems pretty important. The program was led by the Dewey Markham Jr., author of 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification and ran for about three months with 20 live, interactive webinars and weekly reading assignments.

First off, Mr. Markham has that rare ability to take utterly confusing topics like the Côtes of Bordeaux or the classification systems and break them down to their historical origins and then lead the student to put these pieces back together again to understand what’s going on today. His core curriculum was supplemented by webinars from guest lecturers including Roger Bohmrich, MW (covering Garagistes and the economics of Bordeaux), Charles Curtis, MW (two centuries of vintages, and collecting & investing in Bordeaux), and Joel Butler, MW (Bordeaux terroir and the meaning in appellation). The quality of the lectures as well as the reading assignments (over 125 pages) were excellent. I also opted to attend an all-day review that included some well-organized tastings of Bordeaux wines (by soil type and by AOC).

Secondly, the technology was amazing. I hate to date myself, but I didn’t realize online education went beyond passively watching a presentation recording. The webinars were live and the technology such that if you had a question during the presentation, you could ‘wave your hand’ and the presenter would answer your question live. Sure, it could make the presentation go longer than an hour (and it often did), but all presentations were available online afterwards as well. And anything not answered could be posted to the bulletin board which all instructors were active on.

Finally, I just took the final exam this past weekend, opting to take it in person in Washington DC (there was no NYC provider, and there’s an upcharge to take the exam online). The exam consisted of a map identification exercise (10 points), 50 multiple-choice questions (50 points), and five short essay questions (40 points). I don’t think all of the exams have been turned in yet, so I’ll just say that the questions were fair and presented clearly. And I should have studied more.

It looks like the next Bordeaux Master Class will run in May of next year and I obviously recommend it. They also hinted that there is a Burgundy Master Class in the works for 2012 as well. Rhône and Provence also have Master Level programs, but these are limited to a detailed study manual and online exam.

So I’ll find out in a few weeks if I passed.

If you’re an essay grader reading this blog post, may I say WOW! Have you lost weight? You look fabulous!! And that color is absolutely charming on you!

Wine Entrepreneurs Conference Day 2

Sorry for the delay in posting about the second day. Despite the fact that one is away from work for two days, I’m always sad to see that the workload doesn’t take a vacation at the same time too.

The second day of the conference covered recent trends in the wine industry, and new opportunities. I’ve gathered the highlights from the second day of the conference below.

About the conference overall: as I’m stuck in one sector of the wine industry (hospitality), and have only worked in one other segment (retail), I was happy with the panels selected and the organization of the sequence of presenters (industry one day, ideas the next day). Being the first conference of its kind, however, turnout was not high, so networking was somewhat limited. You could also argue that the limited bunch made for more intimate connections, but there’s only so many times you can say “hi” to the few people there. There was a question of price too. I seemed to be one of the few paying guests there, and the price was higher than what I make in a week, and this is before travel & hotel. For that reason alone I will likely not participate next year. Which is a shame. But my company is not going to pay my way to let me network to my next job, ya know?

On to the panels:

“Wine & Social Media”
The highlight of the conference, really. Sure, I have a Facebook account. I view Twitter with a bored distaste that I used to reserve for Facebook. And that’s as far as I ever thought about social media.

This panel covered the basics of what social media is and how to use it for your company. Alyssa Rapp from Bottlenotes.com, Hardy Wallace of Murphy Goode Winery, and Stephen Gilberg from Winetwits.com were also on hand to talk about their own success using social media.

And here I thought I was on the cutting edge with my little blog.

“Franchising Opportunities in the Wine Industry”
Imagine Applebee’s but it’s a wine bar instead. That’s my interpretation of course, but it’s a brilliant concept. Wine service has a much lower labor costs than, say, a bartender (who has to be skilled and you might need to have a few on hand to match volumes). Wine is pop & pour. Add small plates that don’t require a kitchen, and you have a recipe for reasonable-margin business. The Wine Loft is a franchise of wine bars. Crazy-brilliant, right?

The founder of GiraMondo also showcased their wine game franchise ideas, that would be interesting in the right setting.

“Opportunities in Wine Tourism”
One presenter had a great business model where he imported Virginia wines to London (his homeland), but also conducted tours of the Virginia wineries aimed at British tourists. Scott Wayne has been organizing wine tourism in emerging markets like Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. That sounds kinda promising for all parties involved.

Keynote Speaker: Michael Evans, co-founder and CEO of Vines of Mendoza
This man taught us to use our frustrations in the wine industry to create a business opportunity. Such simple but powerful advice. I love that.

“Wine and Technology”
This was a cool panel if only because the founder of wine-searcher.com and LocalWineEvents.com were both participating. I use both of those websites nearly daily.

More recently, Eric Orange of localwineevents.com has launched WineLabelWorld.com, a community repository of wine labels. So let’s say you had a wine you liked but forgot the name. You can go to this website and describe the label (say it had a horse on it). This search engine would then pull up all the labels it had that were tagged ‘horse’ and maybe you’ll recognize the wine you had. Of course, this would be difficult to describe a German wine label, or maybe one of those pretty script labels from Burgundy… The model is built on the hopes that user will upload pics of wine labels.

“Innovation in the Wine Packaging Industry”
I think Mr. Boisset’s keynote speech on the first day got me pumped about new wine packaging, but this panel did not much follow-through. We did get to see some samples of the 750ml aluminum wine bottles. And ReCork America is collecting corks for the purpose of…making flip flops? I guess it’s better than letting cork breakdown naturally in the landfills? I think I’m missing something here…

“Angels and Venture Capital in the Wine Industry”
And here’s where I was to meet my financier to take my business plan to the next level. Except I’m missing an actual business plan. And assets. And I really don’t have positive cash flow either. As you can imagine, the venture capitalists are still very gun-shy, especially as most wine businesses don’t have assets (land & machines) that are worth much as security. The panelists here advocated building contacts who can be your angels years before you actually need them.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Wine Entrepreneur Conference 2010

I’ve studied wine as an academic subject, but I’m kinda lost when it comes to understanding all the different players in the wine industry and what they’re up against. So I was naturally interested in the Wine Entrepreneur Conference 2010 held this week in Washington DC (ok, fine, and I'm a conference junkie).

The conference advertised itself as “the only professional wine conference focusing on wine entrepreneurship” and panels were arranged so that the first day covered the wine supply chain and the second day looked at trends (i.e., social networking) and opportunities (i.e., franchising, packaging). Many of the speakers were harvested from the east coast, which was refreshing to see. Here are my key takeaways from each of the panels:

“Wine Making and Winery Development”
The mid-Atlantic growers (two from Virginia and one from Maryland) all envied where Oregon’s wine industry is now. Despite this, there seems to be no momentum behind a regional growers’ association to collectively promote the wines outside their area. I got the impression that each winery is fighting its own fight for shelf space instead of joining forces to present to the quality wines of the mid-Atlantic to consumers and trade. A promotion similar to Uncork New York! does in Manhattan would go a long way to elevating the relevancy of this region to the public.

“Wine Importing and Distributing”
Oh, the damn three-tier system of booze distribution in this country is so simple on paper, but not easy in execution. The number of government agencies involved in importing a single alcohol-related product is amazing, and this is before considering the paperwork for bank financing. Mr. Earle, formerly of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, used his part of the panel to discuss the key factors for success for New World entrants to the USA.

“Managing Wine and Liquor Stores”
Retail has its challenges, but is not dead. Certainly cost cutting and inventory management has been important over the last year, but the key to success in any type of retail is engaging your customer, whether through free tasting at your store or keeping track of customer’s past purchases to help them find something new they might like.

Keynote Speaker: Jean-Charles Boisset, Boisset Family Estate
Mr. Boisset made a strong case for thinking creatively around wine packaging in the future. I had no idea they packaged some of their AOC Beaujolais wine in 750ml aluminum bottles. Is that even legal?

“Managing a Wine Bar/Hospitality Business”
The tighter economy has lead to creative solutions for smaller restaurants. The consultants who presented here shared that, in certain markets where is it allowed, they have collectively leveraged pricing power and purchased for several restaurants.

“Opportunities in Wine Journalism/Wine Blogging”
It’s a great time for wine freelance writing as newspapers are cutting full time staff so there’s more opportunity to contribute. It’s a terrible time for wine freelance writing as it’s ultracompetitive given so many unemployed professional writers. Mr. Meddis shared his ‘Top 10 Tips & Tricks’ for effective blogging.

I have a lot to learn.

“Wine and Charity: How to Use Wine in Charitable Ways”
Both Vintner’s Charitable Cooperative and Charity Wine have original ways of channeling our love of wine into significant cash for charity.

Day two highlights to follow...

(Picture L-R: James Roth of Red, White, and Bleu, Rodolphe Boulanger of The Wine Messenger, and Laurent Guinand of GiraMondo Wine Adventures.)

Too much wine education

If I had a dollar for every person who’s ever said to me “Wow! You know so much about wine, and you’re obviously so passionate about it! You should write a book/own a wine store/ be on TV/buy a vineyard/maybe find another hobby not based on a controlled substance”, I’m afraid I wouldn't be a millionaire. But I would definitely have enough money to buy a village level Burgundy. From a decent producer.

My first “ah ha” wine moment was back in 2003 over a bunch of cult California Cabernet Sauvignons: Opus One, Heitz, Cain Five, Caymus, Silver Oak. It was a work event, but these wines caused me to lose interest in schmoozing with my clients, and more interested figuring out why these wines were so special. Why did I notice them when, up until now, the only thing I’ve ever noticed about a wine is whether is it white or red? Was it the smell? Should I be paying more attention to legs? How can I get more?

That little episode pushed me down the educational trail when I went to my corner liquor store that weekend and found out I couldn’t just buy the wines off the shelf. Allocations? Well, why don’t they just make more? How tough can it be to replicate that wine, right?

There was a lot to learn.

My first formal class was with Kevin Zaly’s Windows on the World Wine School. Being the masochist that I am (it’s like, I love having tests), 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.

All this while keeping my ‘normal’ day job.

In 2008 I left my lucrative career and embarked in wine. Tentatively at first, but after a brief stint in retail and working a harvest, I’m now a sommelier & wine educator in New York City.

And I moved on from California Cabernets to German Rieslings.

I want to use this blog to record the wines I encounter, build confidence in my tasting notes, explore my own voice within the vinous news, selfishly exercise my writing muscles, and contribute to the never-ending wine education for all of us.

Thanks for stopping by. Let me know when you’re ready for another glass.