Success

Well, here I am.

After driving nearly 4,000 miles over two weeks, I'm in Healdsburg, the heart of the Russian River Valley. It's a hell of a luxury to not be moving right now. Two weeks at 80 miles per hour can really throw you for a loop. The solid ground almost requires readjustment. Charlotte and I made a great tour of the trip, stopping to see the sights along the way. Among them: the Blue Hole, Albuquerque (and its terrible, terrible wines), Santa Fe, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, the Mojave Desert (not by choice), Santa Barbara, Solvang, the Pacific Coast Highway, Napa and Sonoma (more on them below), the Central Valley (geography's analog to boredom), Los Angeles, Disneyland, Orange County, and, finally, USC, where I helped the Wyatts trade one daughter for another.

The trip was expensive, but some great friends helped lighten the financial burden of lodging in some towns, as well as showing me and Char a fun time. Thanks go out to cousin Dai, Lisa G., and the Zechs. Much appreciated!

When we arrived in the Bay Area, we had several days scheduled for exploring Wine Country. We ended up with two days of Napa and one day of Sonoma. Here's a list of wineries we tasted at (in order): Grgich Hills, Robert Mondavi (visited, didn't taste), Domaine Carneros, Bell, Silverado, Robert Sinskey, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Darioush, Moshin, Rochioli, Sbragia, Ferrari-Carano, and Seghesio. During our tasting at Grgich Hills, I had mentioned to the tasting room host that we carried several of their wines at Midtown. She asked me if I had a business card, to which I responded something along the lines of, "Hell no! I'm just a salesman." She then informed me that if I had had a business card, then she could have comped our tasting fees, since I was "in the industry". (In the end, she did, anyway.) This is how I came to learn about the most glorious thing in the entire world of wine: the Industry Discount. Apparently, if you're "in", wineries give you enormous discounts (up to 40%) on their wines, as well as free tastings for you and a plus-one. When Charlotte and I discovered this, it was akin to learning that we had superpowers.

It. Was. Awesome.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by it, though, since I worked the retail side of the biz. I was the guy on the floor selling their wines to the masses. I was one of the most important people in the world to them. Why the hell wouldn't they comp my tastings? Anyway, the Industry Discount kicks ass. The only downside is that Charlotte and I would have to find creative ways to broach the subject of my being a salesman, since I didn't have a business card to present, which is the usual form of ID that gets one the other ID. In any case, this amounted to three days of visiting wineries, chatting up tasting room staffers, meeting winemakers (I'm lookin' at you, Bell), and generally making connections in the California wine scene. Now that I'm in Healdsburg, actually, I'm still continuing to network--and my internship hasn't even begun yet! In the past two days, I have bumped into a few people who know winemakers, vineyard owners, etc., and have offered to introduce me to them. Turns out that this is a town where everybody knows somebody (or many somebodies) in the biz.

Anyway, here I am, moved into my new place in the heart of the Russian River Valley. My internship begins Monday. My shopping is complete. I have my supplies. I'm chomping at the bit, can't wait to get started. It's exciting to begin a project (a career!) that I'm actually passionate about. To be honest, I'm still a little anxious about it, about whether or not this is "the path" for me. There are looming insecurities that cause me to wonder if this is going to be "just another graduate school". Then I remember how much I love learning about wine, talking about wine, and (most importantly) drinking wine, and all of those insecurities fall away.

I guess whatever happens over the next three months, I will consider the internship a success. If I have a positive experience that leads to a career in winemaking, awesome. If I discover that this just isn't a career for me, then I move on to something else, in typical 20-something fashion. Either way, all I have to do is show up and do the work. Luckily, I am a student of the Woody Allen School of Success.