I signed up to be a wine pourer. Sounded like fun. So I get there and get my fabulous salmon pink volunteer shirt!
So we are taken to one of the two large wine serving areas and I get to this one table and set it up as best as I can.
Well then the rep arrives and really tricks out the table.
But then he tells me that he'd rather work the table alone so I get sent to another table where the rep is out and about doing whatever and not manning the table.
The morning was gloomy as all hell, but when the gates opened the sun actually came out!
Well I am not able to drink any wine while on duty, so I have no idea what this wine tastes like. Therefore I had to grill the customers and ask them what it was like after they drank it. I discovered that the Riesling was very sweet, the Sauvignon Blanc is very light and the Cabernet Sauvignon is ...well it is red.
Selling something with any sort of passion if you have little idea what the heck it is like is difficult at best. But I managed to move a lot of it in the time I was there.
We were under a huge gazebo and there were food stations all around.
Every station barring two of them were pushing salmon based dishes.
And I don't really like salmon...
The station serving lamb and the desert station were my favorites!
So I pour and pour then I am off shift. I get 10 tasting tokens for my work.
Each token is worth a 1 ounce pour. Well some wines are 2 tokens for 1 ounce.
It depended on just how expensive the wine was.
I go to my former station and try the wines that I had been selling all day.
Indeed the Riesling was very sweet! The blanc was indeed blank. It was so light as to resemble white grape juice. You could probably give this stuff to a teetotaler and they would not know they were drinking wine! And the Cab was a pretty standard red.
So I burn through the rest of the tokens and wander a bit then take off.
The next day I am taken to the other drinking area and assigned to the Knipprath Cellars table. Christy the rep was there and she was a total sweetheart! She tries her best to school me on the wines and I try my best to remember.
Here is a shot of her on the Saturday with another volunteer. No I did not grow a foot taller and age so that is not me :-)
I took a pic of the table while I was manning it. It is from my perspective so everything is upside down.
The Touriga Nacional red was really good so I bought a bottle of it for myself. We have yet to break it, but we will soon enough.
Christy did most of the talking, but occasionally I had to as she was off somewhere. Trying to remember everything she told me proved to be a challenge, but I suppose I did good enough as people handed over tokens for wine.
After about 3 hours of pouring and chatting it was all over. It was to date one of the easiest volunteering jobs ever! Pour wine, chat, have fun. What more could one ask for?
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