I’m sitting in BWI right now sipping a passable Cabernet at an outrageous price, on my way back to Boston for the weekend, and something occurred to me.
Let’s be honest with each other for a minute or two. I know why you do it, and I understand the trepidations, but most of us have no idea about wine. A frightening amount of wine lovers don’t know a thing. I learned this very early, because before I managed, bartended, or even worked as a door guy (a glorious 3 day stint before getting my ass kicked and being moved to bar back - that’s another story…), I sold wine. When I was 19. How did I sell wine at 19, you ask? Well I don’t know, but it was really easy.
Between working as a bike messenger and playing lacrosse and being an RA, I needed more money, therefore I needed more work. I applied to stock shelves at the Downtown Shaw wine department, which was huge. They told me that rather doing that, I could sell wine. I met Bill, a swarthy Boston man, born and bred, who has probably forgotten more about wine than I will ever know.
“I’m not 21,” I told him. “Yea, but you’re in college. You drink.”
“Yea, but not wine,” I replied incredulously. “And I can’t drink legally.” He laughed and gave me a hearty slap on the shoulder, and said “Well, you sure can read, college boy. You look at least 23, just fake it.”
Understand, I am not the type of person to half ass anything. And it just occurred to me, that I didn’t need to be able to drink to sell wine, I just had to read. And lie.
“If anyone asks you ‘what’s a good year,’ tell them that the only years that mattered were 1961 and 1982, and they only mattered in Bordeaux.” Bill told me as we perused the Old World section of the wine shop. I had heard the term thrown around, and never really knew what it meant. (An interesting update, 2009 and 2010 were both also once-in-a-generation harvests in Bordeaux before the collapse of the Bordeaux in the Chinese market.) Bill broke down the regions, varietals, and would lecture as well of any of my professors at Emerson College. I would have my wine books and put them in the cue in between studying First Amendment Law with Professor Brown, Crisis Communication with Doctor Payne, and Political Theory with Professor Kimball.
Looking back it was hilarious. I would shock and entertain my customers with the opinion that Bordeaux could produce nothing to even compare with an unfiltered Northern Rhone (because I had to sell 4 cases of it to make Bill his quota). I would amaze them with my knowledge of Old and New world, having literally only ever had a sip of the Concho y Toro Red that my mom would drink after work (which is not far off from what I enjoy drinking currently, except fruitier…) and never a sip more in my life.
When I began to truly taste and study wine, it took me a long time to appreciate why there was so much reverence for some of these older vintages and why some people paid incredible amounts of money for a Chateau Margaux that was older than anyone I knew. It was because wine especially, is history. It’s this moment of realization that when you drink a wine from another century, it’s like opening a time capsule. It’s a connection with the past - a piece of history. It’s not an observance of history, its a PARTICIPATION in it, and that is something magical.
Stay Thirsty,
Eric
Did it work? Did you sell wine successfully and did you learn about it?
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