Thursday night 7:19pm, I am reading my emails after an arduous day behind the keyboard. I read there is an event going on at the stodgy old Faculty Club at the University of Toronto. The event is a wine tasting extravganza starring Gary Vaynerchuk. Desperately I rack the few brain cells I have left after a lifetime of abuse to try and remember why that name is familiar. Of course, he is the guy I have been reading about over the last month who took his family’s Ma & Pa liquor store operation from three million to sixty million in a handful of years. Social Media played a part and I am wanting to learn how Social Media can help me in my biz. And wine. I was just introduced to the buttery smooth taste of an oak-cured Chardonay two weeks ago, which allowed me to enter a world I had never visited.
The event starts at 7:30. Do I stay home and make phone calls to build my business or do I go out, experience my first wine tasting event and maybe expand my network. That’s it I’m going. Rush out to the ATM. Grab a cab. Walk through the doors at 7:32pm. The crowd seems to be very wood panelish which is rather appropriate as that is what surrounds us in the anteroom. Well that and a Group of Seven painting. I feel out of place. Maybe it is because I am the only guy with a tie on. I am handed a copy of Gary’s latest and most fabulous book to date, “Crush It”. Time for me to crush a few of those free wines that are circulating.
Multiple glasses later (not a big deal as there is only a couple of thimble full splashes of wine residing at the botom of these small glasses) we are ushered into the main dining room for the main event. I don’t know anything about Gary, other than he is a hotshot Internet Marketer, but I am soon to learn. First he comes to the lectern and gives a low-level bio about himself > born in Belarus > emigrates to America at three > always an entrepeuneur > pre-teen making $1k on wknd selling baseball cards > ahead of the future with early forays into the internet, blogs, video blogging > goal is to buy the NY Jets. Three glasses of wine in front of me for tasting later. What do you have to do to get a drink around here now?
Time for the show to begin. Gary Vee takes a seat at the front table with a wine maker. He is finished with his lectern persona, although he is still going to use the lectern microphone. This is definitely not a high budget Food Network production. The camera begins to roll. I almost forgot, the cameraman, who looks like he should be at a mosh pit for the latest alterna-funk-punk band, is also wearing a tie. Gary explodes into his TV/Video/Showbiz persona. Loud, over the top and in your face. I have to shake my head vigorously. Am I still at a crusty wine tasting event.
Three Ontario Niagara area wines to be tested along with their vintners. The first a 2007 Chardonnay, Niagara River (VG+, VG) from the Lailey Vineyard. A snifty sniff first with our noses fully inside the rim of the glass, as per GVees instructions. Then a good rinsing of the inside of the mouth with the multi fruit, flower & oak tasting liquid. All 70 of us in the audience swallow after rinsing. Vaynerchk and Vintner spit theirs into a bowl. Try as I might I couldn’t taste all the fruit, flower and oak. Obviously, I have a long way to go in this wine tasting business. Maybe my senses were numb from the quantities consumed in the Anteroom?
Next up a Coyote River Pinot Noir. I almost ralphed on the snifty sniff part of the ritual. The winemaker was talking about it in terms of it being delicate & sexy. Not quite the phraseology I was thinking as the musty fumes wafted through my nostrils. Gary talked about toasted flavouring of bacon fat with a sausage gameness to it. Holy geez I better visit the doc tomorrow because I am definitely missing something here. At least if they said it was wet I would have something to agree with. During the break between wines I went up and asked the world renowned Wine Library TV personality about the smell. “Gary, the heck with the sausages I can’t get past the smell as the glass approaches my lips.” He tells me it is an acquired thing like learning to eat liver after you hated it as a kid. I don’t tell him that I still hate liver.
Last up a 2007 Poetica Cabernet Merlot from Southbrook Vineyards. I didn’t even know that Cabernet and Merlot came as a complete item. It must be a marriage made in heaven cause this wine tasted smooth and vibrant. It made me want to search for untouched glasses of it on other tables. The camera died. Are you serious? It’s batteries went dead. A bunch of the audience took out their cellphone/cameras and the show continued. Gary didn’t miss a beat although I am sure he wanted to strangle the horn rimmed wearing lensman. (As an aside, I saw a guy walking through the mall the other day with horn rimmed glasses without any glass. It was just for the look!) Gary said it had a chalky taste. The winemaker said that was because the glasses had been stored rim down on a painted surface absorbing chemicals in the lacquer. Once again. Are you serious? Where do these guys come up with such sensitive pallets (sp)?
Gary ended with a Q & A. I got a question in just to make sure that nobody would spot me for a complete ignoramous. The question had more to do with geography, my major in college. Great night, I learned lots about marketing and about wine. Mr. Vaynerchuk is back in Tdot three weeks hence when his beloved Jets are in town to play the Bills. Hope to rub shoulders with him again. Might learn some more.
Walked back home with a pit stop at Grossman’s. Crissake the place hasn’t changed in 40 years. The beer was cold and fizzy.
