After a couple beers on Saturday I was talking to Sue about her work. She works at Churchill Cellars. I'm not sure exactly what they do, I think they import wine. I really don't know anything about them yet. She told me about how she was busy planning a meeting for her wine tasters to come in to the office and... taste some wines?

The wine tasters are a group of people around the province who go into LCBO locations and give out free samples of products. Doesn't sound like much, really. I asked her more questions, and on a lark I told her I'd give it a shot. It was a pretty short conversation. I asked, "Are there any girls?" Sue's like, "I don't know, there might be, I haven't met a few of the people coming in." That was good enough for me.

Keep in mind this was after a couple beers, and I had just come back from a long ride, so I was pretty hyper. Unfortunately my memory of the conversation went completely south right after. Sue called me this morning to confirm if I was coming. "Yeah I'm there, but what is it that's going on tonight?" Totally forgot.

I didn't have my Smart Serve yet, which was definitely a problem. You need to have this to be able to serve alcohol in the province. I was going to do it on Sunday, but... well I forgot about it. I got it done in an hour. It could have taken much less time, but I actually watched and read all the training material. I didn't know I didn't need it.

Basically all it's trying to teach you is that you're not allowed to serve people alcohol when they're drunk, and it tries to help you identify people who are drunk. It also says that you have to do everything you can to limit your liability in a situation where someone gets into trouble by drinking in your establishment. Pretty basic stuff, but it actually is reasonably helpful. Learned a little bit.

The meeting she planned was actually a wine tasting. I've never been to one before, so it was pretty freaking cool! We had Mark the communications director telling us all about the wines we were drinking, while we ate cheese, crackers and pastrami sandwiches. It doesn't get much better than that. We also had to sign our lives away or something like that, but whatever.

I really don't know much about wines yet. It's such a subtle thing, and if anyone knows me, I'm really not known for my subtlety. I only half remember the wines we had, and what I liked and didn't like. I couldn't allow myself to throw the wine in my glass out between bottles. What a waste! Someone could get drunk off that!

Kim started writing notes on the placemats. In one of them she told me it's not an open bar. Haha. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Kim was there. So was our friend Carol. I had no idea she was going to be there, even though Sue told me on Saturday that Kim was busy doing a tasting for her. I think I'm losing my memory again. Kim didn't know I was coming down either. It was a funny surprise, even though we had found out about each other on the way down.

The tasting went really well. I was absolutely fascinated by Mark's descriptions of the wines. He knew all kinds of details about how they're made, what goes in to them, who's who. I can't believe there's a whole world of things that I know nothing about! (no, seriously... I don't think I know everything, but I've never felt like anything was beyond my scope of knowledge... as long as I've got Wikipedia in front of me ;)) Mark was really passionate about wine, from the debate over screw caps and cork, to using tetra paks and freshness to the types of oak used in the barrels. I'm really going to have to do some research so I know better what the hell he's actually talking about next time.

It was awesome to finally meet Carly, who I have to say is even cooler in real life. We didn't get to chill much today, but it's great to meet someone you've been communicating with for the past while.

I mentioned how we signed our lives away. Well today I committed to doing ten of these four hour tastings. We go into an LCBO location, set up the tasting booth, give out free samples and sell bottles of wine! Yeah, me... sell. How funny is that? It's an experience, and it's something that's way outside my boundaries of comfort. I can't wait to do it.

Yeah, it's not an open bar, but it was open enough for this post to be a little scattered. ;)