Ivy Years

Dear Potential Employers,

I see you. I see you at your desk with a stack of names – candidates with seemingly-flawless resumes and stellar academic credentials. By this point you may have become bored with the monotonous process of Googling names. Or you may be Facebooking your potential interns and gleefully chuckling to yourself as you come upon some blurry shot of said intern doing a keg stand while making a lewd gesture to scantily-clad female cohorts who are in compromising positions.

As a freelance web designer and a (very eager) future intern, I have an especially great interest in my online reputation, which is why I had my hesitations about this blog entry. You see Dear Potential Employers, I have picked up a hobby while I’m here in England. While not exactly self-destructive or harmful to society, this hobby has the potential to burn holes through my wallet, make my evenings go by in a hazy blur, and raise questions about my status as an alcoholic. The hobby? I am currently a card-carrying member of the Oxford Wine Tasting Society.

At the beginning of term, a friend of mine suggested joining the Wine Society here. At first I thought this was a bit unnecessary, because 1) tequila is cheaper* 2) my palate isn’t that perceptive or sensitive and I will probably mistaken a Chateau Mouton Rothschild – Pauillac 2000 vintage for a £5 watered-down bottle from the Tesco supermarket  3) I’ll be taking HADM4430 – Intro to Wines at Cornell next year anyway. My skepticism eventually gave in to curiosity and I went to my first tasting: Introduction to Alsace.

* This is a joke.

A tasting session at Oxford is neither the stuffy hoity-toity scene you imagine nor… okay who am I kidding, wine tasting can be pretty darn pretentious. The meetings usually take place at Merton College and go on for about 2.5 hours. Each session revolves around a geographic region – we’ve done the aforementioned Alsace, Lebanese, Chilean, Rioja, Burgundy etc.so far – and is led either by an expert from the winery/region or the Bacchus Society’s president, the lovely Alex Linsley. The talks are very educational actually – we learned about growing conditions, wine-making traditions, the peculiarities of each vintage, and more.

Upon learning about my new-found obsession, my Oxford tutor for International Economics actually suggested that I do a paper on the wine trade and international wine regulation! THIS IS WHY I LOVE OXFORD. For research, my tutor gave me a DVD of the award-winning film about wine, Mondovino, and told me to go to the grocery store and buy a bottle from every major wine-producing region. Needless to say, my 3000 word essay was a tipsy masterpiece.

Over the course of Hilary term, my roommate and I have accumulated a large number of wine bottles. I was horrified to have this shelf collection pointed out to me one day when I was Skyping with my parents. However, my dad was VERY excited that I joined Bacchus and promptly told me he actually just bought a wine fridge. Here’s a screenshot haha:

During Easter break, we took this wine obsession one step further and went to Bordeaux to have St. Emilion wine (now that’s a whole story on its own). C’est la vie.

So Dear Potential Employer, when you come across my resume and see that I have listed “wine” as an item under “Activities, Skills, and Interests”, do not be alarmed. After all, wine – while I’m legal in the UK – fits under all three categories of “Activities, Skills, and Interests.”

Warm regards,

Phoebe

P.S. – Here are some wonderful blogs I found and now follow =)

• Dr. Vino – The author, Tyler Colman, is pretty prominent in the wine world. He wrote one of the books I read for my Intl Econ tutorials! His writing is accessible and to-the-point.
• WSJ On Wine – “Incisive criticism and accessible advice on the world of wine”
• Jamie Goode’s Wine Blog – Expect lots of pictures and tasting notes!
• The Terroirist – The name of this blog refers to terroir, a French word that holds particular significance for winegrowers. The terroir is basically the belief that the micro-climate, soil, wine-making techniques etc. all contribute to the composition of the wine.  The entire French system of appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) for wine classification is based on terroir.
• Sociology of Wine – fascinating background into this dynamic industry