Good Morning!

I have not blogged in a couple of weeks….My bad. I have been slammed with travel and some exciting things are happening right now and I want to share them with you. Starting next week I will be working the 2012 Harvest for Groth Wines. You may have tried their wines, they are amazing and actually the Groth Cabernet Sauvignon was the very first California Cabernet to score a perfect 100 with the famous Robert Parker Wine Spectator scale…several, several years ago.

I am super excited and I have had so much to prepare for and I also wanted to start doing something differently, instead of a written blog on a daily basis, I am going to try to create a video blog all through harvest. Just so you know, this might be crude at first, it’s a handheld camera and it will mostly just be me, showing you where I am and what I am doing and explaining all the processes during harvest.

I know at least with a video I do not have to worry about spell check and since I always seem to forget to run spell check, that will save me the humiliation of getting an email saying your grammar is lame and your punctuation stinks too. Hahaha…like I really worry about that stuff. I have been journaling more than blogging recently and I am not sure what the difference is but I know three things about myself, I love to learn, I love to talk and I love to share what I am learning.

I hope when I start posting my daily video you will take a minute or two and let me know what you think. I hope it shares some tidbits of info that you can enjoy or impress someone the next time they are chatting about wine….my biggest fear is being boring or having a bad hair day, but I think I can at least keep the video interesting. So hang with me as I head to Napa and start harvest.

PS….besides working for Groth, around Christmas time, I will bottle all the TJR Select and you can finally see and taste what 2 plus years of work has become! The future is all about youtube, video, podcasts etc….I am just trying to catch up and share my little part of the world with you!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi

Good Morning!

You may or may not know this about me but before I started making wine, I was an executive recruiter for 15 years. Actually, I started my first wine kit in the basement during my first year of being a recruiter. I was a mechanical engineer and worked as a designer of products before I started recruiting engineers, it’s a long story for a whole different kinda blog, but my main focus daily was to find awesome manufacturing talent, solid corporations to put their skills to use.

So when one of my old recruiting pals ask me about the wine industry and how is it holding up during these economical times. I have to say, the wine industry is really unique and so are the people in the industry. The great thing about the wine world is it is selling more wine than ever and many. many people make a really great living and support their families and their personal goals as well.

Wine is like any other industry it is split into many different areas but the three basic areas are Production, Sales and Management. Then we can dissect the positions into these categories.

Production: This would include grape growers/farmers, winemakers and all the supporting others who have their hands in on the action, like transportation, barrel makers, bin makers, cork producers, bottle manufacturing, labels, capsules etc….( and not to bore ya with details all the regulators who watch over shipping, taxes, state to state regulations), you can see where this is going.

Sales: You have everything from small producing winemakers doing all their own sales and marketing and delivery to Massive sales teams who rep many wines under one company and they cover regions of the country, you have the folks you see giving out samples in the stores, they folks heading up winemaker’s dinners in high end restaurants and you have folks who are on the other side as buyers for small wine shops all the way up to corporate purchasing for the massive warehouse stores.

Management: Well, you guessed it, someone has to wrangle all these aspects together and management is there to do that. Of course every company has to have a vision, goals and has to honestly make a profit. Wine is like a very highly regulated beverage and it is not cheap to make. Wine shipping costs a lot and has to be watched over with a microscope.

To get back to the wine industry jobs situation, I constantly see openings for the entry level jobs in sales and as a rep for a brand. You have to be 21, no DWI and be a skillful communicator, it does not pay much but once you get some experience under your belt, doors open up.
I also, see many, many openings for a Brand Manager, which is really a sales and rep position, just at a higher level and they like the candidates to have some experience in marketing or public relations. (They like a background in project management exp too.).

Cellar help and harvest intern positions are seasonal so you see many of these job opportunities at the right times of the year. Many of these folks work 3-5 months a year in the northern hemisphere and then they head to the southern hemisphere to work the other harvest, remembering the growing seasons are opposite. (I think this would be the best thing ever, I have worked harvests in the US and Chile) These positions will not make you rich but the travel, experience and cultural experience is priceless.

The production positions are fewer and further apart, because like any other industry, if a producer is looking for someone, they all network like crazy to find a candidate they will love.

Sommelier’s, Wine Specialists, Wine Educators and Critics I have never seen any openings for those types of positions, but I have never even looked for these positions.

Winemakers are normally are word of mouth openings, if they hear you have made great wines, they will seek you out to an open position. Many winemakers are able to work for several companies each year, they work as consultants and many of them have a rep at the cellar to do the hands-on work if they work for several wineries.

To sum up my ramblings about the wine industry job market, it is solid, not strong, but if you want to break into the industry, you will start at the bottom and not make a lot, but you can move up. If you have worked for a winery and done a great job, your reputation will help you network to find the next position.

Finding a job in the wine industry is just like any other industry, you have to commit to the search and meet the right people!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi

Good Morning!

I received an email asking me about shipping wines and it ask about why some states allow shipping and some do not and how do you get wines home when you are traveling.

Let me first say state to state shipping is kinda complex. I am not sure I will answer all your questions but I will tell you what I know and help you get your wines home when you travel!

OK first rule no matter what, you can not ship wine through the US postal system (or at least you are not supposed to). Back when I was still making wine in the basement and I would ship my wines out for others to try or for competitions. I wrapped up my bottles and put them in the mail and it worked for a while…then I get in trouble (screamed at more like) by a postal worker in the Carmel, Indiana post office and felt like a little kid who had peed his pants sitting on Santa’s lap….I am still emotionally scarred from that and that was at least 16 years ago.

If you are shipping wine an it is just a couple of bottles, I would say go buy the correct shipping boxes for wine, they have Styrofoam sleeves in them and you place each bottle in a slot and tape it up and then head to UPS. UPS will be glad to ship it. If you tell them it is wine in the box, they will make the person receiving the wine be 21 and sign for the package. If I was not aware who would be answering the door when I was shipping wine, I told them it was apple juice.

Of course all this happened before I started making “real” wine and I needed to follow the regulations. Since 9/11 so much of our rules are to save us from the crazies who would be shipping explosives and I will gladly adhere to the rules so I stay off the list of maybe’s when something outrageous happens within the shipping industry.

If you are in wine country or out visiting vineyards and you want to purchase wine to take home, you have a couple of choices…here is what I do, I either have the winery ship the wine to my home directly, I pick up a box to ship in that holds 12 bottles with the Styrofoam sleeves and as I go from place to place I fill up the box and the morning I am heading home I ship it to my home from the local UPS, or there is this awesome piece of luggage that you can buy that holds either 6 or 12 bottles, fill it up with your new wines and when you get to the airport, check it in like any other piece of luggage. I find this last solution to me my favorite.

I travel with wine all the time, but you can not carry it on to the plane anymore, the folks at security are not going to let that happen, and forget having your corkscrew in your pocket either. When I am visiting clients, I load up the wines I want to share with them and check in my “wine bag” and then my personal stuff goes in the overhead and it works out perfectly.

Shipping state to state is regulated by each state and there are only 10 states that have a “free trade” system, so check with your state to find a work around to get your wine home. When I lived in Indiana, I belonged to a wine club and every month the club would ship the wine to Illinois where it would be repacked and then driven to my home in Indianapolis. It is a lot of work and costs much more but the wines were not available.

I am a huge fan of trying wines that are not available in the stores, so I follow a lot of winemakers on Twitter and watch what they are drinking and then when I am in the area, I make an appointment to stop into their tasting room. I love watching for Winemaker’s dinner’s in my local area, they have them at Morton’s steakhouse and Ruth’s Chris from time to time and many of the places like Sullivan’s have them regularly and I learn so much about the wines and winemaker and I expand my wine select and you can buy those wines at the dinner too.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to get your wine to your house.

Like I said, every state is different, so find out your laws before ordering something that you have to have shipped to grandma’s then you have to drive to go get it!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi

Good Morning!

This question hit my email the other day, Do you ever get tired of tasting or drinking wine? My first response is “Have you met me?” but then I thought about when I have been tired of tasting or drinking wine and thought I would share some thoughts on my tongue and it’s ability to recover quickly.

I rarely get bored with wine tasting, but I have had so much to taste that I “lose” my palate. I am not a pro judge, amateur judge or a real taster in the industry sense. I do attend many. many tastings and hundreds of pre-release parties every year. On top of those tastings, I receive about 6-12 bottles of wine a week from winemakers everywhere and I sample and give them my feedback.

I have had many occasions where after tasting so many wines, it all starts to taste the same, and my tongue feels raw. Last year at the ZAP Zinfandel Advocates & Producers party in San Francisco, after about 100 different wines (and I was spitting) my mouth took 3 days to lose the purple tongue and stained teeth and then I could taste food again.

I would love to train and possibly become a judge but honestly after 25-40 tastes, my palette just shuts down. I can still evaluate mouthfeel and detect aromas, but my palette is down. I rarely ever get to try more than 8-12 wines at one time unless I go to a large event where many producers are there with there wines.

But to answer your question, No, I don’t get tired of tasting or drinking wine. I keep it interesting by always trying something new, a new producer, new wine region, new grape varietal or even new blends of grapes. I do however have to use plenty of Crest white strips to keep my teeth looking white!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi

Good Morning!

Olympic fever has consumed my home. I LOVE to watch the games and I taped the opening too. (I loved how personal and intimate the story of England was told, But it was not the pageantry of Beijing’s opening ceremony, just sayin’). I am not that athletic but I have played sports in High School and even had hopes for something bigger, but what the heck, my life was created for a different purpose.

I think we are all in awe of the time and effort these player, coaches and parents put into these sports. I had never seen a handball game or women’s water polo, I miss softball as a sport but it is all good, the sport is now strong enough to support a professional league and that is awesome. Anyway, back to my original thought, We took a break from the back to back event watching and waiting for the women’s swimming heats to begin last night and headed out to eat with some pals.

I have one friend who has become the “expert” wine ordering machine. Her strategy is pretty simple she reads the descriptions on the wine menu and finds the word, berry and if the bottle is over $60, she orders it. Hahaha! I know there are excellent bottles of wine that are much cheaper but she feels like a big wig ordering and honestly I have tried some wines I doubt I would have ordered, but I love the pure joy on her face when she takes the first sip and then says “oh, this will be so good when it opens up”. Every time she says that and it makes me smile because 5-6 years ago, she would not even drink wine, but she has come out of her wine shell and she is intoxicated with the power of ordering wine for us.

Last night we hit up our favorite resturant in San Antonio, TX called Dough, I have been raving about this place for about a year and when I am in Texas, I will eat here at least once a week. Long story short, I saw this on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and went to check it out and been a HUGE fan since. They are a very high end Italian pizza place. The cheese is to die for, hand made mozz and gourmet real pizza, it takes 90 seconds to cook in this massive oven shipped to Texas from Italy. Well, the wine in this place is pretty spectacular as well, you can drop a little or you can spend some serious cash on the vino.

Last night my pal ordered a bottle of Livio Felluga Sosso, 2006 a Merlot blend and our server brought out a decanter and the show was about to begin. When the first taste happened, You could smell only red raspberries and that was it, when you tasted the wine it was like a slow baked blackberry cobbler. That was awesome, but as my friend always says, just wait for it to open up…she was correct, this wine turned a good night into something special. This wine made me want to slow down, savor every sip, relax and eat more slowly and I just wanted that bottle to last forever. As the wine opened up, it became more viscous, more rich tasting, more baked fruit tasting and honestly, we were at Dough for 2 plus hours and had I not been sharing this wine with others, I might still be there taking some notes and sipping.

I just called my favorite wine shop and they have 6 bottles of this left, guess who is buying herself an early birthday gift?

Go find it and try it and let me know what you think!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tam