Showing posts with label Everything I know about wine I learned from Catholic school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Everything I know about wine I learned from Catholic school. Show all posts

Sunday, February 03, 2013

Everything I know about wine I learned from Catholic school - Part II

It seems that some friends in the wine business who read the first post, “Everything I know about wine I learned from Catholic school” had ideas about their experience in Catholic school. Over a bottle of unoaked Verdicchio followed by swigs of Chartreuse, we brainstormed and came up with a second part.

Freshly starched habits – When Sister Bernadette or Sister Claire came into the room, perhaps it was the start of spring. The days were getting longer, the air was still cool, but by mid-day the temperature would rise. When one of the sisters would walk into the room with a newly starched habit, one could feel the difference. Fresh, clean, crisp, slightly citric, an edge to it, with a faint perfume of lilacs and lavender. Not unlike the white wines from Italy. Take a fresh Verdicchio (unoaked) fermented in concrete and driven all the way out to dry-ville. No butter, no apples, no milk, no heaving breathing. These were no Portuguese nuns; these were by the book, old-school proper nuns.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Everything I know about wine I learned from Catholic school - Part I

It all started when I was tasting wine with a friend, Damon Ornowski, who is a master sommelier. We were taking apart some wine and I mentioned that I smelled ink. Damon looked at me knowingly, but we hadn’t yet made the connection. “You know like the ink in the Sheaffer Skrip ink cartridges we used to use in school?” Bingo. It was at that moment I realized, everything I know about wine I learned in Catholic school.

I’m talking grade school, 1st through 8th grade. I lived in the desert, in Palm Springs, California. It was a quiet life. But it gave me everything I would need in my adult life to muddle through a career.
Real Time Analytics