Day One!

I pulled into the vineyard driveway this morning just about fifteen minutes early. I am slowly getting a feel for the drive time, which is nearly an hour, and no longer have to use my Google map directions that I printed out on my first run.

This morning the sun was out, and the birds were singing. I had set up the tasting room with Brenda, and we had headed over to the B&B where she was showing me the ropes in the kitchen. Suddenly, she looked out the screen door and shrieked, "The birds! Look at the birds! I'll be right back!". For one awful second I thought I was going to have to round up the school children and go running madly through the streets.


Before I could think to ask Daniel (who was busily searing mouth-wateringly aromatic home-made breakfast sausage patties in a cast iron skillet) where she had gone, there was a loud BANG-SWOOOOOOOSH! sound, closely followed by a minor explosion similar to that of an M-80. I jumped out of my skin and then laughed as I saw Brenda running around the edges of the vineyard with a starter pistol. The blackbirds all took off at once, swooping away in great clouds to go feast on someone else's nearly ripened grapes.

When we carried the breakfast (which consisted of herbed scrambled eggs, the aforementioned home-made sausage patties, grated zucchini fritters, freshly baked corn bread, and peach and strawberry smoothies made with locally grown produce) in to the B&B guests, they were laughing about the bird gun too, saying they thought someone was setting off fireworks in the streets.

The B&B has four rooms, and last night two of them were occupied. The two couples at breakfast this morning were very friendly - one older couple who had included us on their world tour, and a young couple who lived in Manhattan that were just on a little summer getaway. Part of the package for guests staying at the B&B is a free wine tasting (a selection of four wines) at the tasting room, and the young couple came by for their tasting as they were checking out.

While I will be assisting with breakfasts in the B&B, my real "domain", as it were, will be the tasting room. It's lovely, with big windows and a raw wood interior - naked beams, cathedral ceiling and loft. It looks out on a lovely grey weathered deck overhung by a matching pergola, and beyond that the vineyards roll away into the distance. Teak chairs and tables dot the deck, making it a perfect place to sit and enjoy some wine on a beautiful day. Inside, there's soft music playing (today's selection included Emmy Lou Harris albums) and an oversized restroom is available for road-weary travelers to freshen up.

Where I stand, behind the bar, there are racks of wine for sale and tasting, and a small refrigerator where the white and rosé wines wait to be tasted. Behind me, a wooden drop-down ladder leads upstairs to the loft, where supplies, the stereo, and my personal belongings are stashed. There are also two windows behind me, with lovely green pottery and plants on the sills, allowing a refreshing cross-breeze to cruise through the building.

Today, the first thing Brenda showed me was how to set up the tasting room to make it ready for opening. This involved filling water pitchers to set out on every table - for palate rinsing or rinsing glasses between tastes. There are silver "spit buckets" or "dump buckets" which must be placed out, as well as laminated wine menus and lovely curved candleholders hand-crafted from wine barrel staves, which are for sale.

During the day, in between tastings, glasses must be run through the dishwasher, then polished and placed back on the shelf. If bottles of wine are used up, new ones must be opened and the empties put in the recycling box. A close count of all the wine is performed at the beginning and end of each day, and recorded in a book.

In the middle of all this business stuff, though, the customers just keep coming through the door. And they not only taste wine, but they buy loads of it! One couple came in, tasted four or five wines, and bought over $200 worth at a pop! The main thing to remember when doing a tasting is to start off with the lighter, or whiter, wines and move along toward the reds and heavier wines so that the glass doesn't get cross-contaminated with flavors. We regularly moved from Chardonnay to Rose to Table Red to Merlot. If a customer only wants to taste white wines, then we'd start with the lightest and move to the most concentrated flavors.

I was surprised at how many people came to the tasting room with small children in tow - lucky for them the owners' dog, a black and white border collie, was happy to go outside and play fetch with her tennis ball as long as the kids were willing to throw it.

"Ball? Did someone say ball?"

I was very straightforward with the customers today, and told nearly everyone that it was my first day, especially when they asked me questions that I had no idea how to answer. Especially with food and wine customers, one should never try to posture. They'll sniff out your weak points and destroy you. The best bet is always to admit if you don't know something, or if you made a mistake about something, because then you're in charge again and can move forward.

Today's customers were all very gracious and friendly, and seemed glad to be part of my first day there. I listened to Brenda and Daniel as they explained the wine list to each customer, and by the middle of the day they let me try it on my own. By the end of the day, I was able to greet customers, explain the wine list, pour their tasting selections, and ring up their transactions (even credit cards!). The end-of-day cash register and credit card machine procedures will take a while longer to internalize, but I feel pretty proud of myself for being able to handle sales the first day in.

At the end of the day, I asked Brenda how she thought I did, and she seemed really happy with the way everything went. She said she found me easy to work with, and felt we were "simpatico". I felt the same. I am looking forward to becoming really familiar with the wines and knowing my stuff, so she doesn't have to babysit me - and I'm sure she is, too, as there is so much work she could be getting done if she didn't have to be training me. But this is always the way at the beginning of a career.

There was a little excitement in the middle of the afternoon when one gentleman was walking up to the tasting room and the winemaker's dog, a boxer, ran up and nipped him on the back of the leg. Brenda apologized, and thank heavens the man didn't make a scene about it, but that could really have been a bad situation if things had gone differently! Luckily the bite didn't break the skin, but it could have been a child that got bitten, or an elderly customer, or a million other things. The dog was immediately tied up and I didn't see it running loose for the rest of the day.

"But you SAID it was a TASTING ROOM!"

Well, I got to work this morning at 9am, and didn't leave until 6pm, which means I didn't get home until 7pm. And all I had to eat today was a granola bar at about noon (eaten standing up - there is no "lunch break" there), so I am going to mosey down to the kitchen and stuff my face with something.

All in all, I'd say today was a smashing success. Oh, and I made $20 in tips today, too! That will improve as I get better with my shtick, no doubt.

*Please note that the photographs I have used so far in this blog were not taken by me. Once I have completed training, I intend to take my own pictures, but it's impossible to do so just yet. The pictures I'm using now are just for illustration purposes - or to make you snort your soda.