Monday, November 16 2009
Say Phil, What Did Delaware to the Party? Her NEW JERSEY!
Cracked, but never broken- the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
Okay, dumb title, but it's my favourite memory aid to states of the US East. I'm starting this blog entry on the 12th, and if everything goes according to the norm, I should finish it sometime next week, when I'm in Manitoba.
It's a circle of Vintners!
I've been here, working with our man from LD Carlson, David Stuart, since Monday. It's been a busy schedule. We got out of Philadelphia on schedule and attended a meeting with the folks from Vintner's Circle, and David Schmelzle. It was a really good pow-wow with an enthusiastic bunch. I did a session on where the modern wine kit came from (Winexpert) and stuff like processing, how kits are made, positioning, etc.
Doubling up on the Davids: Stuart left, Schmelzle right. Cheers!
After that I did a component tasting seminar and finished up with the Limited Edition presentation for the group.
One of the things that popped out at me when I first saw the store was how nice the finish and decor was, and how well they'd used their marketing materials: check out these banner-stand posters:
I'd want to make wine there: wouldn't you?
Lovely to see a place like that with an enthusiastic crew behind it.
Gadzooks, that was a full day! But it wasn't over yet! We hiked over to Montgomeryville and met up with Jason Harris from Keystone Brewing.
Jason, one of the few times I've ever seen him look surprised. Say cheese!
Jason and I go way back, and his shop is one of the busiest and most innovative in the country, and his crew are all bred-to-the-bone brewing and winemaking enthusiasts.
Jason and the Keystone Crew
There were around 80 people for the event, and it went really well, lots of good questions and some real fun after the lecture signing copies of Winemaker's Guide to Wine Kits (what, you don't have a copy yet?) and chatting with folks.
Sorry I wrote on your magazine! I'll get you another, I promise.
Afterwards we managed to find a pretty decent beer bar and do a post-event debriefing . . . ahem. One of the things that the USA has over Canada, in a very big way is the proliferation of excellent beer. The little tavern we went to had a dozen excellent IPA's, stouts, Belgian specialties and other fine beers. There's not a place like that in Canada, more's the pity, but there is one on every corner in Pennsylvania, or so it seems. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that we don't have such bars in my area: I might spend even more time away from home . . .
Mr. Steve's customers waving to my boss, to show I was actually working that night. Thanks folks!
The next day, after a morning of catching up on emails and phone calls, we did some more touring around to accounts in the area and wound up at Mr. Steve's. Last time I was here he put on a great event for his customers, and this time the surprise was a completely new location and a gorgeous shop with lots of extra square footage, high ceilings and plenty of space for lots of Winexpert kits. Nice job Mr. Steve!
The event was in the same place as last time, but there were even more people. At one point there was some concern that there was a possibility that 300 people would be showing up for a room that was rated for only 250! Luckily there were a few no-shows and we wound up at keeping it legal–a darn good number for a school night.
Make it out to cash, you say?
The presentation went really well. I know I say that pretty often, but I seem to have hit my stride by now, and timing and details flowed nice and smooth. It didn't hurt that the folks were 80% new winemakers who were really grooving on the amount of new information about wines and regions and all the stuff that went with it. Once again, we had a pile of Winemaker Magazine's Guide to wine kits, and I signed for what must have been over an hour, answering questions and chatting. We didn't get out till late and then it was back for a fast sleep and up again.
Monk's? Where do I take my vows?
Thursday we managed to snag a decent lunch at Monks. It's a gastro-pub (although the name makes it sound like a snail or something, it actually means that it focuses on really good food) in downtown Philadelphia that specialises in Belgian beers. The last time I was there I had moules frites (steamed mussels with Belgian-style fries) that I've daydreamed about ever since. David and I split two small orders of those, one Thai lemongrass the other traditional Provencal-style and I had to have the braised veal cheeks. The mussels were as good as I remembered, plump and lush, and the veal cheeks were transcendant: tender as beefbutter and so rich . . . oh my. We finished up with the duck ragout, braised duck leg on buttered noodles, and washed it all down with La Chouffe Houblon, a hoppy Belgian pale ale and a couple of other glasses, all spectacularly good with the food.
Paul Romanowski and David Stuart
No rest for the wicked (or the gluttonous) we raced off to meet up with Paul Romanowski at Wine Barley and Hops at the Bucks Hotel. It's been three years since we did an event with Paul and he puts on the dog. Bucks hotel is a very fancy joint, the kind of place where fellows propose marriage to their best gal, and grateful bosses take employees to fancy-pants dinners. The room was perfect for 80 people, and held a couple of wonderful surprises.
Lining up at the Buck's Hotel
First was my friend Don Hodgens. He's with the US department of commerce as a trade negotiator. I first met him through an email that he sent my way, asking for clarification about the contents of wine kits. Turns out he was part of a trade delegation that was working on tariffs with the Europeans. They had no understanding whatsoever of wine kits and wanted to either slap punitive tariffs on them, or block their export altogether. And who was sitting at the table across from them, but Don, a home winemaker who was using my kits. Needless to say he was able to provide a level of expertise that kept things on the right track–whew!
Cheers from northern PA. Don Hodgens on right front, dark blue shirt. Hi Don!
Don brought another surprise with him, a bottle of his home-brewed Oktoberfest beer. I know I'm 'Tim from Winexpert', and I write extensively about wine, but I got my start in the industry as a beergeek (in fact, that's one of my original email handles from nearly 20 years ago, when barely had the internet on typewriters, much less computers). I'm an all-grain brewer and a certified BJCP judge and I do enjoy the occasional glass of beer. To paraphrase Michael Jackson, the original Beerhunter, wine is a playground, not a prison, and while there are days that go by that I don't have a glass of beer, there aren't any weeks that pass without it. The beer was great Don, and just the thing to soothe a weary traveller. Next time you're in town, beer's on me.
Me and cousin James, two peas in a pod, no?
Another unexpected and wonderful surprise was the appearance of a relative of mine! The Vandergrifts I'm descended from originally came from northern Pennsylvania and upstate New York. They were United Empire Loyalists, meaning they bet the wrong way during the US revolutionary war and had to get out of town just moments ahead of tar, feather and the hangman's noose. The family originally settled in Nova Scotia and moved westward across the continent, putting down roots across the prairies until my folks eventually washed up against the west coast. The Bucks Hotel is in northern PA, and when I walked in there was a very distinguished and familiar-looking chap waiting for me. He asked me if I was Tim Vandergrift, and introduced himself as James Van Artsdalen, the grandson of Emma Vandergrift and Windol Van Artsdalen!
James runs the Leap Rabbit B&B in Waymart Pennsylvania and makes his own wine. A true Dutchman to the core, he admitted that a lot of his enjoyment in making his own wine came from getting to drink delicious wine on the cheap (my wife says I'm so cheap that every time I pull out my wallet moths fly out. She's being silly: those moths died of old age long ago, waiting for me to open the wallet). We had a great chat, although it was a busy night and a hectic with questions, so I'm going back to PA soon to make a little time to talk to him in the future. Nice seeing you cousin!
The whole event went really well. When you've done several hundred of these events you appreciate all the little details, one of which is getting a really good, large projector screen to work with. I usually bring my own data projector, which lets me run a computer slide-show off my laptop, but I can't haul a folding screen on airplanes. I guess I could, but man, those things are brutal to lug through an airport! An eight-foot screen does an okay job for up to 80 people or so, but bigger is always better, and that night the banquet crew had brought out a fifteen-foot screen! It was like having my own Jumbo-Tron to work with, and everyone could see the slides with perfect clarity–woo-hoo!
What's all the small print about cardiac problems?
Once again I seemed to be hitting a good stride with pacing, and the interest level of the crowd. Of course, my pacing my have had something to do with the magic vitamin energy drink that David bought for me at the pharmacy earlier. It said 'natural herbs and vitamins for energy!', but whatever it was, it was like 8 hours sleep in a little bitter shot. I didn't see any purple elephants, but it did make me feel perkier right away.
I'm my own worst critic with speaking engagements. When I'm coaching people on giving talks I always tell them that the audience never really notices any stumbles, and when they do their only thought is to root for you to move on and be comfortable. Rarely do you get a hostile or judgemental audience when there's the promise of tasting wine at the end! In any case it seems like I've got the flow and rhythms under control and afterwards the tasting portion went very well indeed, with at least half the people in the crowd coming up to ask questions or tell stories about their own wine and food experiences. Some days this is a very good job to have, like being at a party every night with people who really suit the criteria of your value system. I would have liked to stay a little bit later and enjoy a few glasses of wine myself, but by the time things thinned out it was already nearly 11 pm, and my airport hotel was 90 minutes drive south–and my plane was at 6 am!
Eventually I got all the way back and I got part of this down in the Maple Leaf lounge in Toronto, finally writing up the rest on Air Canada 7909 between Thunder Bay and Saskatoon. I have this feeling I'm going to have just enough energy left when I hit dirt to get my suitcase, drive home and maybe–maybe–get my shoes off before I pile onto the couch with the kitties for a very well-deserved nap. They miss me something fierce when I'm gone, especially my boy Spot. He bonded to me as a wee kitten and most of his social discourse revolved around yelling at me for being away, for not feeding him enough (a vile calumny: he weighs 22 pounds) and for no discernable reason whatsoever.
Spot, taking a break from his busy schedule of loafing, shedding, and using my credit card to buy mousies
I'll take him out in the afternoon and play bocce with him, or maybe Frisbee golf and he'll be right as rain, as soon as he scratches my suitcase and hides my socks.
After that it's a quick turn-around of laundry, smooching the missus and off to the airport again: my biggest week is coming, and Monday I fly to Manitoba to do five shows for Winesense, one in lovely downtown Brandon (go Wheat Kings!) and four more in Winnipeg.
For me it was love at first sight
It's fitting that I'm doing this big week for Winesense on the 20th anniversary of the Limited Edition program. This will be the 10th anniversary of the Limited Edition tasting seminar as well, and Winesense (known as The Brew Doctors at the time) were the first people we guinea-pigged for an event.
It all started when Jeff Anderson, then sales manager for the company, and I were batting around ideas on how to get more people involved in the Limited program. For about the hundredth time someone in the room grumped, 'If only we could let people taste the wines, then they'd know how good they really are!', and a lightbulb of a thousand watts went off over my head: we could let people taste commercial examples of the wine, sidestepping the issues with excise tax and permits for consumer-made wines, while still letting them get an idea of the varietals, the styles and how they went with food. Seriously, it was like a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movie: "Let's do a show to save old man Brew King's wine! We can use the old barn, and Tim can sing, the boys can do a dance number and everyone will come!"
Hilarity ensued: our first event was for 46 people in the Viscount Gort hotel in Winnipeg. That night was one of the worst thunderstorms in a decade, with gouts of water running down the windows, gully-washers roaring down the streets and threats of flooding. People were getting soaked walking ten steps into the ballroom, but they came, they watched, they tasted, and by golly, it worked like a charm! The rest is rapidly coalescing history, with Winesense now accounting for the second largest annual wine tasting event in the entire province, over 1200 people attending and lots of friends, old and new coming every year.
All right! Time to land and get home. That luggage isn't going to scratch itself.
Edited for PS! Looks like my prediction at the top of this blog entry was correct. Once again ensconced in the fabulous Maple Leaf lounge, I'm finally putting this one to bed. Tomorrow it's up early and off to Brandon to see Ben and the gang. Whee!
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