I didn't have any experience of presenting a wine before my first week of work placement at Wine.co.za, where I was asked to present a new red blend wine pack to their team as a blind tasting. They had to guess the Wineries and the prices for each of the blends. I thought to myself " Wow this is going to be fun!". With the help of Suheena & Judy (Wine.co.za staff members), I was able to prepare the whole tasting set-up and I enjoyed the experience of seeing all the work that goes behind wine tasting.
When the team arrived at the tasting Suheena introduced me to them. At that moment my palms were sweating from the nerves I had, but I managed to overcome them and went ahead with the presentation. I had seven different red blend wines to present and share what varieties made up each wine, I even learnt to pronounce some of those varieties such as Petit Verdot, Malbec and Tannat. Suheena revealed the wines to the team after the tasting and we then sat together at the table and enjoyed them. The tasting helped me to interact more with the team and share some of the knowledge I have about the blends whilst learning from them as well.
A special thanks to Suheena and Judy for making the tasting possible, and I would like to thank the whole Wine.co.za team for welcoming me into their own space and connecting with me throughout my work placement. I still have a lot to learn about the wine industry, yet I'm very grateful to Wine.co.za for the contribution they have made on my journey to reaching my full potential.
These are the wines that were tasted on the day;
