Wine Trips
Wine trips are one of the perks of being a sommelier. They counter balance the long hours, late nights and constant stream of high intensity stress during service.
Wine trips are the things that make being a sommelier so much fun. You are invited to visit a wine region and spend a few days immersed in the culture, learning the stories of the people and place and accessing some of the best winemakers in the world.
These trips often come as a result of many years working in a restaurant developing relationships with the agents or suppliers of wines. Wine agents will often organize trips to regions they focus on, inviting and bringing along a select group of buyers and media to tour the region.
Other times the trips are part of a regional marketing committee interested in further penetrating certain markets. These trips are the best because they offer the opportunity to meet and talk to sommeliers and media from all over the world. There are still sommeliers from other parts of the world I am in touch with years after spending a few days together in a small wine region.
Don’t get me wrong: these trips are are not wine fuelled parties that last for days on end. These are long, structured days of tours, tastings and food.
Usually you’re meeting in a hotel lobby at 8am for breakfast and out the door by 9 with stops at one or two wineries in a morning before moving on to a venue for a big lunch. Then two more wineries in the afternoon and an even bigger dinner, often with some of the most impressive wines from the region being poured. And you might do that for 2 or three days.
Each winery visit will sometimes consist of tours of the cellars, but honestly, once you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all. So more often than not, the visits are sit-down tutored tastings led by a panel of winemakers and/or local sommeliers.
It is an amazing way to see some of the world and I personally have been tremendously lucky to have been invited to visit wine regions while meeting people who are equally as passionate about region around us.
However, it is not to be forgotten that these are in fact sales trips. The expectation is that once back home, the wine orders come in and the stories you learned are poured back into the glasses of restaurant’s patrons. It’s a win-win for all involved.
Taking time out of a hectic schedule of a demanding restaurant life to visit wine regions is nothing short of extraordinary and certainly one of the best parts about being a sommelier.