For a chocolatier, and a chocolatier just starting out with their fledgling business, I was about to embark on a very exciting adventure. To be given the opportunity to do a chocolate and wine tasting in Buenos Aires is indeed an opportunity of a lifetime. However, more than that, this particular trip showed to me just what my capabilities, potential and strengths really are, and some important learning lessons along the path of owning your own business.
The thing that struck me the oddest was that after the first minute of arriving in Buenos Aires everything went wrong. I won’t even go into the nightmare process I had to deal with at the Canadian Embassy, (I will save that for my personal blog), but it basically started with the test chocolate and wine tasting the first afternoon.
The Epiphany
I arrived at La Cava del Querandi (www.lacavadelquerandi.com.ar) to meet with the manager and the sommelier. I was a bit anxious I will admit as I normally have the pairings selected prior to an event, however given the distance between Mendoza and Buenos Aires I elected to do the test tasting the week of the event. So we sat down, selected a few whites and I began chopping the chocolate. Pairing chocolate with white wine for me is the ultimate challenge, and the most satisfying. To find a perfect pairing of a dark chocolate with a white wine (and not a typical sweet one) is like finding the leprechaun’s pot of gold. I have only found one absolutely perfect pairing thus far in my adventures as a chocolate and wine taster, and I remember it with a longing such as one would have for the gentle caress of a lover… pure bliss. It was a 62% chocolate from the Rio Arriba region in Ecuador paired with the 2007 Viognier from Lorca Poetica in Mendoza. I had never experienced such perfect heaven and harmony in my mouth from a pairing, before or since then. But I am on the search!
The selection of the pairing itself went quite well and we ended up with a lovely Torrontés from the Mendoza region and a semi sweet chocolate from Ecuador with hints of orange infused into it. However, at the end of the wine tasting as I chatted to the manager, I began to realize that I didn’t have a full house on my second night of presenting. My stomach began to sink. I went into denial. This couldn’t be. I had been so sure that all of my contacts in BA were going to make it that night. It was a terrible moment for me as a business woman because the second night had been set aside for my own invitees; the first night was a special presentation for the club members. This was technically “my” night, and I needed to fill the space. I had somehow failed in one of the basics of business: communication and promotion. Yet at that moment I experienced a very important epiphany and within the span of 30 seconds I moved myself into a completely different emotional and mental space with respect to my business. In the past I have always had projects on the side, but always at the same time had a 9-5 job. I was no longer in the 9-5 job world and this was no longer a side project. This was my new found career and business. This was it. The sensation was something akin to the responsibility of motherhood dawning on a first time mother. I have a commerce degree, I even specialized in marketing. I know the basic ins and outs of business and was well trained in promotion and communication. But for so long I had been in a state of brain numbness after working in the government office world for 7 years that I was out of my entrepreneurship groove. (Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot in that environment, but not to do with the area of owning your own business…) Well, my perseverance and Capricorn determination kicked in, and like Stella in Jamaica, Chrissie got her groove back. (Well, okay, maybe not in the same way…)
In the end I had a full house that night as there were many club members that were interested in the tasting and couldn’t make it the first night, so they all came on the second. But nevertheless I learned the important lesson of communication and promotion, and this was a lesson that I would never forget.
To be continued….
