Why I Am Taking This Class? -Sawyer Clark

This is a simple questions with a three-part answer. All three of which relate to my family.

The first reason I am taking this course is that I grew up in a farming family in the Willamette Valley (Oregon, USA) and have seen an explosion in the number of vineyards near my childhood home. My parents and brother still live and work in agriculture in Oregon and regularly communicate the impact wine has had on the area. I used to think that vineyards are typically started by retirees who want a second career making a very niche, high-end wine. However, what I have seen in the Willamette Valley is traditional fruit, vegetable, and grass seed farmers planting large vineyards to supply commodity-type grapes for massive scale wine production (think Costco).

The second reason is that my sister manages the wine club for a winery in Lodi, California (about 2 hours east of Stanford). Her job has her doing lots of customer communication and direct sales in the tasting room as well as online. It also takes her around the U.S. to sell wine to wholesale buyers. The thing she likes most about the role is the wholesale selling. She has become very interested in wine as an industry and talking with her about wine has grown in me a desire to gain a better understanding of the drink from field to retail store.

Finally, I married into a wine family.  My wife is from northern California and her family loves wine. Through them I have learned to appreciate the drink I once thought people only consumed as a status symbol. Spending time with them over the past 8 years has exposed me to many different kinds of wine and helped me understand some of the art behind the drink.

In a spirit of full disclosure, I have a terrible palette for tasting wine. I hope that through this course I learn to appreciate the subtleties in wine, but it is honestly very difficult for me to taste them, let alone appreciate them.