Growing up in the 80's wine was not as popular in the US as it is now. It certainly wasn't in my house growing up and I knew nothing about it. When I was In my 20’s I wanted to learn all of the skills I considered “Adult Skills” so I decided to take up wine tasting.
I subscribed to Wine Spectator magazine, bought a huge wine encyclopedia on the world of wine and would spend hours pouring over the various regions and varietals. I love plants so this was right up my alley. I was working for Capital One in Tampa at the time administering their Nortel phone system so made a good wage. I decided to go down to Bern’s Steakhouse and see if I could get a part time gig in the wine department. I met with Ken Collura their Sommelier and he offered me a part time job.
As one of the perks of working at Bern’s I would be allowed to attend all of the wine tastings they held at their other location SideBern’s. This was an amazing benefit for me since my wine knowledge was so limited. I was suddenly attending private wine parties and tasting flights of wine while increasing my knowledge.
Of course there was still work to do at Bern’s and my tasks at the restaurant included pouring over 200 wines by the glass as well as taking diners on a tour through the wine cellar and restocking that cellar from a warehouse of over 500,000 bottles. The tours were a lot of fun and I was lucky enough to take Mario Lemieux on a tour, though I didn’t know who he was at the time.
People romanticize working in a restaurant or a bar, but as anyone that has worked in the restaurant world knows, its tons of hard work and passions run high. We would be slammed all night hustling to keep the waitstaff happy pouring glasses, making drinks and cleaning. My day job got busy so my time there was cut short but I was lucky enough to try many wonderful wines, my favorite was a 1973 Petite Sirah.
Life took over and I left Bern’s but still wanted to work in the wine industry full time. I continued working in IT but sent my resume to Morrell & Company in NYC. Morrell was founded in 1947 and is a wine retailer in Manhattan with a wine bar, an auction division, e-commerce site and a storage company. They needed someone to manage their AS/400 system and my role would be 50/50 IT support and learning the wine business. They flew me to NY and I was taken on a tour of the company and we discussed the position. I ended up not taking the job due to the cost of living in NYC being young and naïve and was not fully aware of the differences in daily life.
Many years past and I threw myself into the business world building my skills while working at JPMorgan until we went through an outsourcing of my division and I was presented with a severance package. I traveled across the country in an RV but that’s another story. When I arrived back in Florida I was out of a job and started to rebuild my life. I took many jobs but I was living down the street from Florida’s largest winery’s Lakeridge Winery. I applied and was hired to work in the tasting room taking guests on a tour of the winery culminating with a wine tasting.
I was also lucky enough to work various marketing events held at the winery and representing the winery externally at restaurant shows and festivals. The Orlando restaurant show was amazing, there were hundreds of vendors there offering samples. We arrived and we had to setup our stand. Lots of hot sweaty work needed to be done lugging in wine and our displays. Once we were setup we got changed and poured wine all day and educated consumers on the product.
We took turns exploring the show and I had Kobe beef, tons of cheese and all the wonderful food I could eat. I am not a foodie so this experience was an education for me. At the end of these shows, no one wants to carry what they have left back to the car so everyone starts trading wares.
I left with several giant bags of chocolate and other vendor’s wine, and my food tasting experience increased exponentially.
The next event I represented the winery at was Biketoberfest. This is an annual motorcycle rally that attracts over 100,00 people to the Daytona beach area. I was pouring a biker themed wine for this event and quickly learned that the women were more interested in the wine than the men. It was still a fun event and I met many interesting people, saw tons of amazing motorcycle’s and finished my trip at the Boot Hill Saloon and way too much fireball.
I left the winery to work for The Walt Disney Company as I had quite a few friends over there at the time. When I started at Disney I actually met with several restaurant managers as Disney offered a Sommelier program and training at the time. The Sommelier program they offered was focused on cast members that worked in the food and beverage areas of the company. I would have needed to move to a food and beverage area, then move into a waiter position for a while and I would eventually become qualified for the training.
I eventually left Disney and the wine world behind and went back into the Information Technology industry as making money in IT was much easier for me from my many years’ experience in that world.
I enjoyed my time in the wine world and seriously thought of taking courses at The Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis at one point. My advice for anyone that wants to work in the wine industry or become a sommelier, is to go to school or start working at a restaurant or liquor store. For most people there are many many years of grueling low paid work before you reach the point you want to be.
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