Hello, all. I would like to welcome everyone to my brand new blog website where you can learn everything about wine and spirits and possibly more! I'm excited as all of you are on this journey and I want to share with all of you how my career started and how it's currently going.
I was 18 years old, had a few months left of high school to go, and was working at T.J. MAXX as an associate. I didn't hate it, I enjoyed the job and what I was doing, but I knew it wasn't something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My aunt offered me a job in the spring of 2014 to work for the liquor stores here in PA. A seasonal position for the summer. I only accepted the position because I wanted a little bit more money and I wanted to be able to save money to get a car and to be able to drive myself to places. I started the day after graduation from high school, June 7th, 2014. It was a Saturday, they needed a shift covered in one of the not-so-nicest areas on the outskirts of the city of Pittsburgh. It was only 6 and half hours, but it did feel a lot longer than that. After that day, I kept going and working hard and saving a ton of money, I ended up with like $2,800 for the summer all while keeping my TJ MAXX job and using that as spending money. I ended up buying a car and then put in my application for Permanent part-time for the PLCB. October 12th, 2014 was my hire date, and needless to say, I never looked back.
Moving forward 3 years into 2017 is when I officially dropped TJ MAXX as a second income and wanted to focus a lot more on the liquor stores. It was also the same year I turned 21, though I didn't put my notice in at TJ MAXX till August 2017. The day I turned 21, January 4th, 2017, my first legal alcoholic drink was Captain and coke, along with a shot of Crown Vanilla. I've always had a sweet tooth and still to this day have a sweet tooth, so I can appreciate certain sweeter things. I started drinking rum and experimenting with different rums. I even started sipping rums instead of mixing them because of the many bad situations that I had when I would drink too much alcohol at once, so, to me, sipping the rum at a slow pace was perfect, that way I wouldn't just catch a buzz, but I would be able to appreciate the flavor from that specific rum. Brands like Diplomatico, Dictador, Smith and Cross, Bumbu, Plantation, Kirk & Sweeney, and even Ron Zacapa were some of my favorites and it made me appreciate drinking even more. Drinking slowly and drinking for flavor is so much better than drinking just for effect. You can appreciate everything that went into the liquid that is in your glass, it always fascinated me.
After rum, I started experimenting with all the other liquors, besides gin. I couldn't stand the smell or the taste of it and always wondered why people would want to drink pine needles. Little did I know, that Gin & Tonic would be my next favorite cocktail by the age of 24.
The first wine I bought on January 5th was Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. One of the most famous New Zealand Sauv Blancs, and arguably the most famous Sauv Blanc. I merely tried it because everyone raved over it. I will be brutally honest and tell you that I thought the wine tasted like grapefruit water. I didn't think it had great flavor at all and didn't see the hype in the wine itself. I moved on to something sweeter and more approachable that would fit my palate as a fresh 21-year-old. My aunt brought me an Alasia Moscato d'Asti and I thought it was delicious. To this day, I still think it is a great Moscato for people who enjoy Moscatos! Slight effervescent/sparkle due to the Asti method where they put that liquid into a pressurized tank and that is what causes the bubbles. It was appealing and I bought that over and over again. I started experimenting with other sweeter wines and fruit wines infused with Moscato, with a brand called Tomasello Winery. Then, those started to get too sweet for me and I started moving into drier wine and experimenting with that side of it. I tried wines like 19 Crimes: The Banished and thought it was great, and wines like Seghesio Zinfandel, Grewaycke Sauvignon Blanc, Mascarelli Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, and Decoy/Duckhorn products which were superb in my book, all without having an educated wine palate.
Moving forward to the end of 2018, I am working one day in the stores and my GM told me to go help the Wine Specialist in the store. I knew the backroom the best and as he wasn't brand new to wine, he was brand new to the store, so he didn't know exactly how we operated in the backroom. He took me under his wing and taught me everything I needed to know about wine. How to taste it, what to pair it with, the whole nine yards. After several months of learning under him, I started appreciating it myself and studying textbooks and watching youtube videos, and reading articles because I was so fascinated by wine just because of what he was saying and that there is so much to learn! I thank both of them every day because I don't think I'd be where I am without them. I enrolled for the CSW, which stands for Certified Specialist of Wine. I studied every night for at least 2 hours, recording myself reading and then listening to the audio files so the information would stick in my brain. I took it very seriously, but unfortunately, I did not pass the test and I have not gone back to take it to this day, though I do plan on too soon. If there was one thing I could take out from all the studying I did was that I don't need three letters next to my name to justify that I know anything about wine, because I do and I take a lot of pride in my job today.
Now onto 2020, as it wasn't the best year for any of us, I was offered a promotion to become a Wine Specialist for Donaldson's Crossroads store in McMurray, PA, and am still currently there absolutely loving the store. It's a smaller store but does a lot of business because McMurray and its surrounding areas are very affluent. I have built up a customer base like I would have never imagined before and am so grateful for every single one of them. They are the reason I am still at the store and am always happy to serve every single one of them, and course the newcomers as well!
Also, remember all those wines I first tried with no wine palate at all. Kim Crawford still tastes like water, 19 Crimes The Banished and as a whole absolutely suck and are wines made for the American palate. Although, I do still have a ton of respect for Grewaycke, Duckhorn, and Seghesio. I do wear appreciating on my sleeve, but will tell you when the wine or liquor sucks. I hope you enjoy the blog!
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