CHEERS to All Wine Educators

Wine isn't part of the school curriculum for most of us. Thirsty eight-year-olds don't have lessons about Bordeaux vs Napa blends sandwiched between math class and history class. Studious teens aren't taking school trips to do barrel tastings at the local winery. And rare is the teacher who carries corkscrews in pocket or stocks decanters in the classroom.

CHEERS Mini Wine School

Still, as we age and mature in life, many of us have found people to guide us in the world of wine, and I salute such knowledge givers on Teacher's Day.

One of mine is a guy named Frank Siegel, a Pittsburgh native who came to China 35 years ago to work in the oil industry in Qinghai, and then ended up opening restaurants and cafes in Beijing.

Frank's cafe became a wine classroom for hundreds of people. Every Friday, he would open five bottles based on a theme – a grape like Merlot or Malbec, a style like sparkling or sweet or New World or Old World, a country like South Africa or Slovenia or Chile or China.

And when you showed up after a long hard work week, you knew you would learn something new. Frank's tastings satisfied our thirst for something delicious and our thirst for knowledge.

And he is just one of many who has played the role of teacher.

Like Lee Yeanyean of Grace Vineyard in Shanxi, who showed me how using barrels from five different forests in France could radically change the same wine. (And all five wines were delicious.)

Or Ma Huiqin from China Agricultural University, who introduced me to intriguing wine from Yunnan, Shandong, Hebei and more. (Including some made with grapes native to China.)

Or Claudia Masueger of CHEERS, who taught me to pair wine with fondue. (The cheesiest lesson that I ever learned.)

For Teacher's Day, I will open a special bottle of wine and dedicate it to them all.

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Original by Jim Boyce, Grape Wall of China 葡萄围城

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