#WineWednesday - Australia

As an employee of DW, we will reimburse for the cost of a certified course and the exam if you pass. I originally signed up for the Italian Wine Specialist course and attempted to study the 72 DOCGs prior to the four-day course and exam. I was too busy with the opening of the restaurant that I pushed the class back two months. I then became the Events Director and cancelled the $500 class all together. Not only that, but I memorized five DOCGs and ended up forgetting them. I just couldn't focus or commit.

During that time, I made copies of wine regions and started to memorize them along with key cities. I remember having these maps under me on my yoga mat as I did planks or stretched. It would help me take my mind off how much I would shake in the stretch or counting down the seconds until rest time. One of those maps was of Australia.

Today, I briefly went to a free event at an old party spot of mine, 111 Minna Gallery, featuring many Australian wines. 

My Wine Director was supposed to go with me but she was feeling under the weather. I went solo. The last time I was at 111 Minna was for an event one of our investors was hosting before DW opened and I don't recall the graffiti across the way.

It reminds me of a visitor I had in town from Ottawa saying, "Your graffiti is better than ours." I believe him. 

Normally I'm fine going solo to events but I just walked a bit in these Cole Haans for two days in a row and I don't think I wanted to stand and mingle much. I also was unprepared and didn't bring a pen to take notes on the nice booklet they were handing out that listed all of the wines that were available to taste. I wasn't going to remember much if I tasted half of what they had available without taking any notes. It was quite a selection.

It was a pretty good turnout. The space has been transformed from it being a club on Wednesday nights during my advertising days in my early 20s. What wonderful memories here.

The first one I had was the Pilar Box Red 2012 from South Australia. I recall it being jammy and tasty. I then tried the McWilliam's Cool Climate Shiraz 2013 from New South Wales. I really enjoyed the jamminess of the last wine that I didn't think too much of this one. The price of these two were around $15 a bottle. That's pretty cheap.

I snacked on some cheese and charcuterie. I was overhearing some of the conversations being had and the attendees were much more knowledgeable than I was to even begin a discussion. "I wish my Tara was here!" I thought. My Brewer went to an after party for an event with many sommeliers and he did not enjoy how arrogant some of the people were. In his world, the beer world, everyone is friendly, no matter what level of beer knowledge you might have. It could have been the shoes, it could have been being insecure in the lack of my wine knowledge but I wasn't planning on staying much longer. 

I then decided to go to one last table and head back into the office. I wasn't going to learn too much here without enough hands to hold a pen, the booklet and a glass of wine. I had the De Bortoli Estate Pinot Noir 2014 from Victoria, which was nice but not as nice that one bottle of Navarro Pinot Noir Kristian and I had at Chez Panisse.

Then I finished the event off with the No Le One Botrytis Semillon 2011 from New South Wales. The gal behind the table asked I knew it was a dessert wine. Uhm, no, I did not know that. Maybe I was sensitive and felt out of my element, but should I have known that? Regardless, it was sweet, of a bronze color and tasty. With that, I was done with this event. I have never left an event like this without a single business card. Networking fail. I need to work on that. 

Tara!!!!