"The first few minutes are fluffy."
This is what I felt when I taught a wine seminar for the first time in a while last Saturday.
For about five years before COVID-19, I held wine seminars almost every month. I had the opportunity to speak about how to enjoy wine in a variety of places, including bookstores, cultural schools, local cafes, and my own store.
However, after two and a half years of COVID-19, it all came to a sudden halt.
Recently, there has finally been a mood to resume events, with the number of wine events gradually increasing and requests to be seminar lecturers returning.
The venue for his comeback match will be Riedel Nagoya , a wine glass shop.
The theme was to introduce the appeal of New Zealand wines while having participants taste Cloudy Bay, a leading New Zealand wine brand.
An incident occurred at the beginning.
"Umm.
I agree.
first.
No, not first.
Umm..."
...This is not good.
Well, there are a few things I want to say that come to mind.
There are all these things floating around in my head, but I can't put them into words.
So, to be precise, it wasn't that I was floating, but rather that even when I tried to grab hold of the things floating above my head and put them into words, they just floated away from me.
While I was doing this, a blank moment passed. Oh no. I must have a strange expression on my face.
As a result, I think people got the impression that Iwasu was a bit airheaded.
Take a deep breath, look back at your resume, and check the flow.
Once I realized, "Oh, that's the order I should have said it in," things started to move forward.
Halfway through, I started to realize that this is what it's like to speak at a seminar, and it became fun, and before I knew it, an hour had passed in the blink of an eye.
With the help of people who actively participated in the question time, I was able to finish the seminar safely? Or rather, with only minor injuries?
But starting off with that fluffy time was a bad idea, even though the wine was delicious.
I think the reason for this was probably that I didn't have enough tension just before the event.
We talked about New Zealand wines, which I'm familiar with. The staff are familiar with each other. There are some regulars at Bokumo among the customers.
This made me become complacent.
Before the seminar started, I chatted with the staff and started the seminar in a relaxed mood. I started talking and ended up being a bit vague. How embarrassing.
Thinking back, I should have made time to be alone just before the event, reconfirmed the flow, and fired myself up to tell this customer about the appeal of New Zealand wine!
I have to make use of this lesson from next time. Okay, I'll make use of it tomorrow!
Yes. Actually, I had two seminars in a row on Saturday and Sunday.
On Sunday, I was invited by the Owari-Asahi City Junior Chamber of Commerce Alumni Association to give a two-hour talk titled "Wine Seminar for Businessmen."
In the car on the way to the venue, I was thinking about a strategy: "How can we make wine feel as familiar as possible? Maybe I should get the participants involved."
Since it was the first time we had met, we all started out feeling a moderate amount of nervousness.
When uncorking champagne or corked wine, we asked customers to come up to the front and open the bottles together.
We had a Q&A session at various points, and we continued to communicate with the audience. By the second half, everyone was a little tipsy, and we were able to finish the event in a relaxed atmosphere.
I was also grateful that the organizer arranged for an assistant to pour the wine.
I realized how important it is to expand your image beforehand and then take on the challenge.
So on the second day, I didn't feel any lightness or excitement, and, although I may be biased, I felt that it was a decent experience and headed home (oh, of course I was non-alcoholic).
On the way, I stopped at a convenience store to buy some hot tea, and in the parking lot I called my wife to tell her, "The seminar went well."
"Yes, yes, good job. You look excited."
"Well, yeah!"
By the way, here are the wines used at the seminar.
Riedel Seminar "The Appeal of New Zealand Wine"
- Cloudy Bay Perolus NV (Sparkling)
- Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2022
- Cloudy Bay Tecoco 2019
- Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2019
Owariasahi Seminar "Enjoy Wine Smartly"
- Taittinger NV (Champagne)
- Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2022
- Felton Road Pinot Noir Calvert 2020
- Chateau Lagrange 2015
That's right, what made me happy was that after the Riedel seminar on Saturday, people who had attended the seminar came over to Bokumo for drinks.
Also, the importer from Cloudy Bay and the staff from Riedel came to the store. We are very grateful.
Even after the seminar on Sunday, I received a reservation from the organizer saying, "Some of the participants want to go to Iwasu's restaurant, so I'll take them there!" This made me very happy. I hope that everyone will enjoy the chef's cooking along with New Zealand wine.
Unless there's some kind of trigger, wine will always seem complicated and a bit far removed from me.
However, if there was an opportunity like this seminar, it might become a little more familiar.
To help achieve this, I want to "communicate the appeal of wine in as easy-to-understand a way as possible." That's right, before COVID-19, that's what I've always wanted to do.
During the COVID-19 hiatus, I was so busy at my own store and launching the mail-order business Bokumo Wine that I almost forgot how I felt.
After the seminar, when I receive a lot of questions, I feel like my message got across and it was worth doing.
I have to do this. I have to share the joy of wine.
These two consecutive seminars renewed my resolve.
