Almost professional

It has been eight years since I collected my WSET Diploma from Jancis Robinson at the Guildhall, and even more since I finally passed the last of the exams to qualify for it. 

In the intervening years I have given a few tastings, helped to run (and nearly kill) a local wine club and continued to read and learn more about the subject.

However, it was not until I responded, almost on the spur of the moment, to an add on the internet that I ever got paid for using my hard-earned knowledge (if you will permit me the immodesty of the claim).

In the five weeks before Christmas 2021 I joined the team at Majestic, Berkhamsted, where I spent many happy hours unloading newly delivered pallets, stocking shelves and, yes, advising customers on which bottles might satisfy their tastes.

It was only a fixed term temporary contract, but the on-line learning provided by the company was comprehensive, well-produced and actually enjoyable to complete, leaving me feeling that I was able to meet the needs of both the company and their customers. The staff discount was appreciated, too.

I am retired and so I shouldn't really be thinking in these terms, but if they asked I might just be available for a few hours a week.

If the Russians do start WW3 then I guess I have nothing to lose. If they don't, then perhaps I have a new chapter to start. I will let you know.

President trumped?

Donald J Trump is an awful man. A dangerous fantasist and probably a lot worse. Looking at him and his sycophantic offspring as they watched, laughing, jeering and even dancing, the riots at the US Capitol unfold an uncomfortable thought crossed my mind.

In the 1970s The Osmonds were a big thing. A family enterprise that conquered the music business on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. But which of them ended up with all the power? The eldest brother? The only girl? No, it was the youngest and most unlikely member of the family, Little Jimmy. 

Ivanka, Don jr, Eric and hanger on Jared all have blood on their hands and it is difficult to imagine the GOP will ever nominate any of them. Barron, however,......

Happy New Year

It is now 2021,  the UK has officially left the EU and the transition period has ended. My daughter has still to deliver grandson no 1, who I am pleased to say avoided being a 2020 baby, and who I am looking forward to meeting.

I intend to tread more lightly on the earth this year especially as I think I probably have 20 years +/- 50% left, barring accidents of any kind as 20 years ago feels like it was about 10 years back.

Keep smiling.

Old Vines, Old Bloke

 I had an email a few weeks ago from a friend I met during my days, or rather evenings, at the WSET in 2010 and beyond. She is a brand and marketing professional and had asked me if I would be prepared to take part in an interview connected to some research for a new wine based initiative. So this morning I did just that.

As with everything in 2020 it took place over the internet in a session run by a marketer who interviewed me alongside another former student colleague to gather our thoughts on 'old vine' wines and their potential appeal. We were asked to begin by explaining who we were and what was our relationship to the wine trade.  I am an interested consumer. My fellow interviewee had been a professional sommelier and wine buyer, having spent time working with both Gordon Ramsay and the Galvin Brothers as their head sommelier.  What rarified company.

It was fun, but I found myself feeling a little conflicted between my interest in exploration of the wine world and the love of the idea of supporting small producers and their ways of life, with my increasing cynicism about both marketing in general and the levels of guff that get spouted by experts in the wine community.

Anyway, I am told I will receive some wine in appreciation for my time and so I will look forward to that.

In preparing for the interview I had a brief look back at my wine career, if you can call it that. In particular I looked at my 'Late Harvest' blog, which has again fallen into disuse. I shall start again, indeed have just started again, to taste and comment on wines regularly but may move away form the alphabet disciplines I have used previously. Or not. What struck me is that the blog entries fell away completely and suddenly at the end of 2015 and the only real attempt to pick them up again was at the start of 2019, but they didn't make it past the end of April that year. What is significant about these dates, I wonder?

I think it is this. 2016 was the year in which I travelled the world the most frequently in both professional and personal capacities. This included four, two-week working trips to Australia, one to Hong Kong and Shanghai, and a two week holiday to Vietnam, starting and ending in Hong Kong. There were also a few trips to Belfast, one for an entire week, and the whole lot was followed up in early 2017 with a trip to Johannesburg and my last trip to Australia which was followed by a two week holiday to New Zealand.  During this period I was working constantly and under some pressure and I had little time for anything else.  I was not happy, but too busy to really notice. Four weeks after the last trip I was made redundant which lead to a new way of professional life that ended, by my choosing, in November 2018. I think that explains the 2016 to 2018 hiatus, but why did 2019 fail?

Well, I was doing ok until the end of a very enjoyable three week holiday in Japan. But my mother died whilst we were away and my mother-in-law decided not to live at home with us anymore once we returned. That meant a sudden and dramatic change of life again, a vacuum which has happily filled with holidays in Croatia, Alsace, Peterborough(!), the Lake District and Piedmont.

Looking back, pretty much all of that would have provided opportunities to explore and comment, but I think my mind was elsewhere. So, off we again, especially as the current pandemic means that I have to do something to pass the time!

Locked down again

I write this sitting in the kitchen having recently examined contents of my cheese fridge where there are several hard cheeses, both blues and reds (don't go mixing the reds along with the blues, as the great Fairport Convention once sang on one of their less great tracks) and some soft. Reviewing my output has caused me to ponder on wtf I am doing with my time.

The soft cheeses which are quite young are rather pleasing. The blues are promising and the reds a little bitter. Very much like the emerging outcome of the US Presidential election that is currently failing to conclude.

Any old road up, as an old boss and now older friend had a habit of saying, I notice time has flown by and I have again allowed my pointless blogging to drift into abeyance. 

Given that I am now in my seventh decade and officially more vulnerable to this centuries plague, I think it time to give it another go.

I am at least on paper a qualified bore in both wine and cheese, but as The One has implied she has noticed have done nothing useful with this status. I have shelled out quite a few quid on gaining the certificates so perhaps I should get up off my ageing arse and take a bit of a risk.

What puts me off a little is the sense that the world is already full of similarly qualified dullard and that one more would only add to the surplus. On the other hand, who cares? 

I will spend some time preparing a pilot wine & cheese evening for a small bunch of carefully selected friends who, I hope, will give me their honest comments as to whether others may be interested.

In the meantime.

I am a cave man

The new life, if not yet into the full Late Harvest, is going well, thank you for not asking. I have been on duty in the community shop 23 times since early December and have found that very enjoyable and a complete change from the last 40 years of proper work.

I have just invested £15.36 (plus £35 carriage) in a used wine fridge which will become my cheese cave. That is, the place where all the cheese I pan to make will be put to wait until it is ready to be eaten.

So much to learn but, by more judgement than luck, plenty of time in which to learn it.

Open All Hours

I have donned my pinny and greeted the locals with what I hope is a welcoming smile.

I have taken deliveries from the butcher and the baker, but am still awaiting the chandler. I have used the till, coffee machine & dishwasher, but not yet the oven or the hob. As a result I have almost completely forgotten what I used to think of as real work.

Just before starting the Third Age, I went along to an evening at the WSET school in Bermondsey where the Academy of Cheese was hosting an event entitled 'Tipsy Cheeses'. This was a tasting illustrating a range of cheeses that involve alcohol in either their make or post-make stages. (The Academy of Cheese uses the 'make/post-make' model to define how stages in the development of any given cheese allow it to be broadly classified.)

This was a great evening and it has spurred on my enthusiasm for my own artisan micro-dairy, such that last week I made two cheeses and this morning waxed the latest batch of Chiltern Crumbler.  I say batch but this is really one 850gm wheel which will need a few months to develop before I will know if it is any better or worse than previous attempts. The other cheese is experimental and much smaller, weighing in at only 140gm.  The difference between the two, apart from the size, is that the smaller (unnamed until I eat it) cheese was made by putting the curds into a mould and allowing it to drain under its own weight, whereas the Chiltern Crumbler was put into a cheese press for more than 12 hours. I am hoping that the smaller, unpressed cheese will be softer and creamier, but only time will tell.

Today, apart from trying to find the discipline to pay attention to the Christmas shopping, I will be learning how to use my pH meter that The One kindly gave me too long ago. I am very grateful for such a generous gift and feel guilty that I have yet to learn how to use it but, as with other potentially complicated things, I have been a little too cautious and not have enough courage to make mistakes.

The same is true of my digital audio interface, but more of that on another day.