Plane To Landau

Disclaimer:  I'm back from seminar and a side trip to Southern Spain so these posts will come in delayed.  I can't get into the seminar mock exams yet because not everyone in the program has gone.  I'll get into my various asskickings taken/small victories earned when they're done.

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I’m flying to Germany right now to go to seminar.  This is a required week in the MW program, almost the only thing that is required with the exception of showing up at the exam and trying to pass it.  I had the option of taking the seminar in Adelaide AU (dates didn’t work), Napa (been there, done that) Odney UK (went to England this summer, sure not going in January) and what turned out to be Landau, Germany.  Landau is not exactly a tourist destination, but it’s within striking distance of a bunch of relatively well-regarded Pfalz wine producers and it’s fairly easy to get to from Frankfurt, an international hub airport.  I’m always into going to Germany as I get to build in a trip to see my German friends, and I find traveling in Germany really easy.  Things work logically there unlike say, Portugal.

I have plenty of time.  I quit my job a couple weeks ago.  Now, I knew I was going to quit my job for a few months as I wasn’t “aligned” with the company but I waited until the end of the year for a sense of symmetry.  Let’s be clear.  When I say “aligned”, I mean I wasn’t terribly interested in continuing to be treated like a piece of garbage in a passive aggressive environment that elevated certain favored employees in what can best be described as an alternate reality.  It’s easy to develop Stockholm Syndrome, something that should be added to the company handbook welcome kit.    

I described working there one time as being like when I moved when I was in third grade.  Since I was new in school, the teachers decided they would put me in one of the lowest reading groups and elevate me if I demonstrated I knew what was going on.  They had four reading groups as I recall.  The top one was The Red Group.  The one just below that was The Blue Group. Those two met in the sunny activity room that faced the playground.  I got put into The Brown Group on my first day.  We met in the small area they cleared by the furnace in the basement.  I forget what the last bottom group was called, but there was a kid named Joey Costa that spent most of his time rolling around on the floor making monster noises, so we all knew what was up with that group.  They were a bit… special.

Anyway, I go into The Brown Group and they’re reading some kiddie bullshit.  The brown fox jumped over the lazy dog or something.  I get asked to participate and I knock it out like I would if you asked me to read it today.  I’m thinking, “what is this shit?”.  The rest of the kids are just struggling through it.  “Tah-hee?”  No, that says “the”  Michael… Ohhhhh…. I’m wondering what the fuck I am doing there as EVERYONE in my old school could read this two years ago.  I’m not even on the same planet as these kids.  I spent two long weeks in that class before someone finally noticed I was bored to tears watching these kids flail away hopelessly with the most easily solved problems ever.  THAT is what the last half decade was like for me at The TV Station.  

I got elevated out of The Brown Group, but not too quickly.  I remember the two teachers being nervous about it.  NO ONE had ever gone directly from Brown to Red.  It was absurd.  It’s not like I went from “Cat In The Hat” to “Crime And Punishment”.  Still, they exhibited great caution.  I had to show the cut of my jib in Blue Group first before they decided to really let me open it up in Red Group.  I lasted two classes in Blue Group and get sent to Red Group by the exasperated teachers.  The downside/upside was The Red Group was almost all girls and were reading “Little Women”.  I suppose I never would have read that otherwise, but it wasn’t much of a payoff getting that promotion.

So, I am out of all that now.  I am totally focused on this wine exam.  I can’t tell you how much clearer my head is without this consistent feeling of work anxiety about getting jacked around.  I am in the zone baby.  I am starting to connect all these dots in my weak areas of winemaking and viticulture.  I am REALLY going to have to hump it to get to some sort of illusion of mastery by the time the exam rolls around in June.  I had a fog lift, but I am cutting it very close.  I’m approaching it like a job.  I go to a library for 3-4 hours in the morning, work out, light lunch, and get back in there for another 3 hours.  A few days a week I put in another two hours after dinner.  It’s all wine, all the time.

I have heard that for most people that passed practical (the tasting), it was when they just immersed themselves in theory.  I was a little skeptical of that, but as usual, people were trying to tell me and I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet.  With these points available on the tasting exam, it’s not solely identification.  Sure, you have to know what a Chablis is, but when you know all about how they make it and where it gets sold, that’s when you can get over the line.  Last year if I was asked about Chablis winemaking, I would have said “Ummm cool ferment, steel tank?”.  Now I can talk about free run juice, press juice, enzymes, harvest dates, batch fermenting, commercial v wild yeasts, malolactic fermentation, neutral oak aging, battonage, cold stabilization, fining, filtering, and closure choices.  I have progressed past “well intentioned amateur” to “knows enough to be dangerous”.  It’s not enough though…

I am looking forward to seeing where I am at this seminar as opposed to where I was last year.  Last year I had some real “what the fuck is he saying?” times going on and accompanying Imposter syndrome (which in retrospect was probably valid).  I am hoping this year I will see some of my training paying off.  I hope I can pick up some more shit from the people speaking, and probably more importantly, from the fellow students showing me some of their knowledge.  I’m all in baby.  Let’s do it.