Trying to catch up…

Still at it.

Still drinking wine.

And more importantly, still nerding out about it.

Early this year I applied for and was accepted in the Bâtonnage Mentorship program for women in wine. This has been a fantastic opportunity to meet with women in various sectors of the industry, ask questions, make connections, and even just discover the wealth of options out there. I feel a lot less silly about maybe turning this into my full time career in the future, but I still have a lot of figuring out to do.

I am also starting on my WSET Level 3 next month. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust is another certifying body that I have been interested in because of the depth of education involved. Level 3 is the launching point to go on to their Level 4 or Diploma studies. I am very excited because this will also be a chance to take a class with a smaller, and hopefully at least partially local cohort. There is also a tasting portion in this examination, and this is something in which I know I need more training and experience.

After having a great experience at the Society of Wine Educators National Conference last August, I joined the American Wine Society to find more events and other ways of getting involved. I have yet to make real connections with a local chapter, but I did participate in a local-ish event, the Winter Wine Weekend down in Harrisonburg, VA. It was a fun weekend of classes and a grand tasting of Virginia wines. I have a much longer winery must-visit list!

There is also a potential to visit Sonoma again this summer, or maybe return to the SWE Conference (waiting for that information to be shared!), or maybe we finally get back up to the Finger Lakes. We’ll see! For now, I will get this posted and maybe take a look at all of my, “I should really post about that,” pile.

Zum Wohl!