That constant niggle of whether I’m doing the right thing by trying to ram my way into the wine industry never wants to go away. I grew up as an introverted maths geek, became a reluctant finance geek, and then a very angry young man working in an office somewhere in London. I don’t miss those days one little bit, but sometimes I’m constantly battling with myself about whether this wine thing will work out, and if I’m actually any good at it. Well, some weeks are better than others…
Pipe Down Littl’Un
I’m not good at blowing my own trumpet, and I’m not a massive fan of most people who do it about themselves either. You grow up where I grew up and shot your mouth off about something great you’ve done then there’s a queue of buggers waiting to take you down a few pegs. Self-deprecation rules. So this is a bit of a tough post, but a couple of things happened in the past couple of days that have given me a bit of boost, so bollocks to it, you’re going to hear about it! 😉
Schlepping It To Vauxhall
First up, this Monday just gone, one of the UK’s Bordeaux experts, Richard Bampfield MW, invited me along to a tasting through some Bordeaux appellations. I didn’t ask too much about it, but when Richard offers, you know it’s going to be good for you! We were going to taste them, have a think about the differences and why, and then jumble them up and do a blind tasting and see how many you could get right. It was at the MW offices in Vauxhall. “MW Offices? Bit weird!” I thought, but sod it, head along and enjoy it.
Lap Of Honour
I wandered in and was surrounded by MW students, with their fancy words and horribly confident tasting techniques. Ah f&ck it! But I only went and came top in the blind tasting comp at the end!!!! Cue the embarrassed, bright red, but inwardly smug expression on my face! Maybe I’m not that bad at this tasting malarkey after all?
#bdx16
Riding a bit higher than my usual on the Tuesday, I then got a message from Jeff Burrows, who you’ll know as the man behind the Food Wine Click blog. I was chuffed for Jeff as he’d won a place on the Millesima Blog Award trip to Primeurs in Bordeaux this year, so he’s pretty clued up right now on all things #bdx16!
Under The Influence
This French luxury brand company called Vita Bella had run some diagnostics about Primeurs week, and released a kind of “Top 10 of the week” jobby. Apparently I was the 4th most influential tweeter for the whole week of #bdx16. 4th!?!?!?!?! I nearly fell clean off my chair! I was only there for 3 days! Imagine what’d have happened if my parents roof hadn’t fallen in?
I promise to return to being an awkward git from tomorrow, but huge thanks to everyone for letting me bask a little bit in this rare moment of glory!
Cheers
