My job here at Vinoteca mostly involves being locked in a dark office, staring at a computer screen, but sometimes I am released back onto the floor where I began my career here just over three years ago. One of my favourite parts of being a server is suggesting wine; I couldn’t be more pleased when a customer finds one of my suggestions to be exactly what they were looking for. Of course it doesn’t always work, and sometimes I find myself suggesting my favourites over and over again. Of course just because I like a wine, it doesn’t mean a customer will like it right?
I find one of the best ways to appreciate a wine is to have a story associated with it. It helps to distinguish it from all the other wines. These stories can also be incredibly useful when selling wine to a customer, especially the unpopular ones that no one has ever heard of.
I can understand that it must be quite daunting skimming through our 275 bin list, certain wines and regions are easily overlooked. Bergerac is one of these regions, being the unpopular slightly weird cousin of Bordeaux.
2006 Bergerac Rouge ‘Les Sens du Fruit’, Chateau Jonc Blanc
First of all I love this wine; it is my type of wine. A Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec blend, unoaked, all about fruit flavours, and great slightly chilled. A few months ago I was vacationing in the South West of France, not too far from Chateau Jonc Blanc, so we headed there one afternoon to see if we could buy some of their wines, and put a face to a bottle. There was no one at the house, just a man driving a tractor in the vines, could this be Monsieur Pascal? We waited at the end of a row until the tractor came closer; he switched off his tractor looking a little confused:
I said “Bonjour! Est-ce que vous-etes M.Pascal?”
He replied “Oui?”
What luck!? We were then given a tour of his chai, and he sold us some of his wine, at a very reasonable non UK taxed price, then we were off to enjoy his lovely wines with our dinner.
Now when I’m working in the restaurant, or suggesting wines for a function this will be one of the stories I can tell to encourage people to drink some of the lesser known wines on our list, which I can assure you are just as good as the more famous ones!
Caitlin
2 Comments
July 16, 2009 at 5:01 pm
caitlin, that is such an amazing story; it’s like something out of an old novel.
z
July 16, 2009 at 10:58 pm
i told you drinking would make the stories come