Essay: A sommelier’s continually emerging love affair

My continually My continually emerging love affair emerging love affair

By Rachel Rhan Contributing Writer

As it is with many great love affairs, my love affair with wine was unplanned.

When I first graduated from West Chester University in 2015, I began the search to find my dream job – editing – and I searched high and low for it while working part time at a university bookstore. When the job results yielded nothing and the bookstore went out of business, I found myself without drive, without purpose and without a path to take.

Eventually, my best friend Amanda recommended that I apply for a part-time position at Chaddsford Winery. My experience with wine before that time had been extremely limited — a glass here and there with friends or family – but the real truth was that I didn’t particularly enjoy wine. Without any other options in front of me, I decided I had nothing to lose by filling out an application.

In the summer of 2016, I received a call from the winery to come in for an interview. Knowing practically nothing about wine or the industry that I was about to join, I accepted a position as a part- time associate, thinking that my time here was meant to be only a blip in the slideshow of my life.

My first days at Chaddsford were interesting, overwhelming, and all-consuming, but it was during those early days, however, that all of this exposure was leading me towards an astounding revelation that I felt destined to be drawn into.

Wine, I was discovering, is awesome.

With every grape, every vintage and every blend that Chaddsford presented me with came the need to immerse myself further into the world I was now a part of. I quickly devoured the training materials Chaddsford gave me and was soon on to my next tasting notebook, the next stack of flashcards and the newest edition of Wine Folly.

I became a fountain of information, and began arriving at work by asking my colleagues, “Hey, do you want to know a fun fact?” All I could think about were grapes, the different styles of fermentation, and the difference between Bordeaux and the Loire Valley. With each tasting, each note I took and every fiber of knowledge that I had started to collect, the management team at Chaddsford recognized my new found love and put me and a few others into a WSET Level 2 class in the Fall of 2017.

After that class finished, I knew I had found my career.

I wanted to be a Sommelier.

Shortly after that class, I started to become a foundation

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in wine education department at the winery. I started training new hires, writing tasting notes and utilizing that English degree. I started pairing wines and hosting events that focused solely on education. It was clear to everyone around me: I had found my groove. I had become active in the management team and I began sitting in on meetings, connecting with our winemaking team and learning more about the cellar and its operations.

In 2018, I was offered the official role as the Wine Educator at the winery. This came with the challenge and the task of creating a training program for our tasting bar and tour programs, working with all new hires and current staff, writing tasting notes and spec sheets for all wines on portfolio and contributing to press and radio interviews.

I began preparing food and wine pairing menus and, most of all, I began my first steps towards becoming a Sommelier with my completion of the Intermediate Wine Course (IWC) through the International Sommelier Guild.

In 2019, I was announced as a winner of the Young Leaders Summit through Somm Con in Washington D.C., hosted by the Tasting Panel. It was a three-day conference where I tasted hundreds of different wines and met some of the very best Master Sommeliers, restaurateurs and wine makers in the country. I tasted a Nebbiolo that had been harvested in the foothills of the Swiss Alps and then left to age in a caged box for four weeks. The grapes had turned into raisins and were then pressed, resulting in a figgy, orange brown wine.

I tasted one of the most exquisite cuveés out of Italy that showcased the finesse and elegance of their terroir.

I learned from the female representative of Provence, France about their Rosé production. I was able to have lunch with one of the Mondavi’s and learn about California.

My three days in Washington, D.C. became 72 hours I will never forget. It was a mind-blowing expanse of information intake that allowed me to stand in a room of hundreds of other people in the industry, as a representative of an East Coat winery.

It became one of the proudest moments of my life, and I fell in love all over again.

For me, the education of wine has become an endless hallway of open doors, because the limit of what

I can know, taste and experience is never-ending. Every year, producers and winemakers are concocting something new, and the truth is that I will never taste the same vintage twice. While I find that a wildly exciting and endless discovery, I know that for others, wine can be a very intimidating hallway to step into.

As a wine educator at Chaddsford Winery, my goal is to make wine approachable and fun, and I make sure that that point hits home with all of our staff – and to everyone who comes in for a wine tasting. Cracking the code of wine has to begin small, so my advice is to begin with one grape and go from there. For example, Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the most popular varietals in the world, so if you begin your research there, you will soon learn about the grape’s origins in the Bordeaux Region. You will learn about its traits and characteristics, what its parent grapes are and the styles of wine it produces.

By starting your wine journey with Cabernet Sauvignon, you will arrive at the grape’s link to Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Grapes are inherently connected to each other based off of region, heritage and blending capabilities. The best piece of advice I can offer anyone who wants to learn about wine is to take notes.

My personal journey into wine has been one surreal ride that dates back to the Summer of 2016, when I applied for a job because I needed something to do. That one moment radically changed the course of my life. It created a trajectory that I had once struggled to find, and it carved my path.

If I could go back to the girl who wondered if life had anything lined up for her, I would tell her that it absolutely does. I would tell her that it would be worth the wait, and I would also tell her that she’d love every single minute of it.

Rachel Rhan is the Retail & Tasting Room Manager at Chaddsford Winery. To learn more about Chaddsford Winery, visit www.chaddsford.com.