Episode 32: The Bubbly Professor in the House
The Wine Two Five crew is stoked to welcome Jane Nickles, CWE, CSE to the show. She’s the Director of Education for the Society of Wine Educators and one of the most beloved and accomplished wine educators that you’ll meet. You won’t want to miss how “The Bubbly Professor” came to be. Honestly, “My dress is on the floor” is something we never thought we’d hear on the show, but our faces literally hurt from laughing at the end of this cast. We hope you enjoy your time with her this week as much as we did. Be sure to stick around for upcoming wine education events, a factoid, and some words from you! It’s a long one, but the entertainment is nonstop this week!
Jane Nickles, MBA, CWE, CSE
Yes, this week we’re talking with our special guest Jane Nickels. “The Bubbly Professor” is in the house, and we’ll be sharing information about what’s cool in the wine world and some upcoming events with the SWE. For those of you who haven’t seen her blog, “The Bubbly Professor: Excellent Adventures in Wine Education” you are in for a treat. This episode should have been called, “Excellent Adventures in Podcasting” because our faces hurt from laughing at the end of the recording.
What was in our glasses during this excellent adventure?
Jane: Paumanok 2014 Dry Riesling, North Fork of Long Island, an AVA of NY state for all you CSWs out there! It’s zingy, like an electric charge on my tongue! Lovely zingy, and electric (just like Jane). She paired it with a bouillabaisse for dinner!
Steph: I’m brightening-up this gloomy day with my version of “Afternoon in Palermo”. It is a Prosecco cocktail with Sambucco, and I substituted fresh grapefruit juice for lemon juice. If you love licorice/anise flavor, you’ll love this spritzy drink.
Val: Piaugier 2012 Sablet Cotes du Rhone Villages Sablet, Rhone, France. Of the 95 villages that can make wine for the Cotes du Rhone Village (a step up from Cotes du Rhone), only 18 can append their village name to Cotes du Rhone Village – Sablet is one of them. Expensive? Nope. This one is $16.00 bottle, and this vintage is 75% Grenache, 25% Syrah. Lots of pronounced ripe red fruits, medium minus T&A (tannins and acid), and quite easy to drink, yet food friendly.
About Jane:
Jane Nickles is the Director of Education for the Society of Wine Educators. A little background if you’re not yet a follower: she is in charge of all educational materials such as study guides, workbooks and online courses as well as exams and certification. She’s spearheaded the concepts of SWEbinars, ebooks, online review classes, and computer-based testing that the SWE uses now.
For over 20 years she’s been a full-time wine educator, but in her former life worked as an executive chef, sommelier, and food and beverage director, and Chef Instructor/Wine Educator at Le Cordon Bleu North America. Not only is she a Certified Wine Educator and one of the first six Certified Spirits Educators on the planet, but a Certified Food and Beverage Executive (American Hotel and Lodging Association), published author, accomplished and awarded educator including (and these are just a few swiped from her “street cred” list):
— Food Educator’s Learning Conference -The “Ultimate Culinary Educator”
— Winner of the WOSA Sponsored Professional Wine Writers Competition (writer of the award-winning essay that featured as its prize a 2-week trip to the Winelands of South Africa). The accolades are endless, and so is her energy, it seems.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are so insanely stoked to introduce Jane Nickles, aka “The Bubbly Professor.” We cannot express the life she brings to stories about how she got into education and what her well-rounded background in hospitality brought to the table (pun intended). Not only did her bubbly personality earn her the moniker by way of, “Hey, aren’t you that bubbly professor?” it encouraged her to go above and beyond for her students by offering online resources that then became popular with the public (including yours truly). It was at while naming her website and blog, the face palm moment, that she realized that the word “bubbly” was the perfect, appropriate double entendre. I mean, who doesn’t love a professor of bubbly (i.e. sparkling wine) or a bubbly professor?
Jane was kind enough to share her most prized achievements along with some “keeping it real” stories that will inspire anyone who started as a prep cook, server, or who’s had a wardrobe malfunction on camera while presenting. That’s right – we’ve all dropped trays, tripped, fallen (or walked into glass doors face first) and the world did not end. It happens. And we all have to laugh about it later. “My dress is on the floor!” was the show quote of the day.
Finally, we asked her about the coolest things on the horizon (like the CSW certification summit on Italian wines!) where the Society of Wine Educators is concerned, and she’s super excited about all the new offerings, webinars and particularly her new contribution, the CWE manual for candidates. Oh – and did she say a Bourbon mini-conference? Yes, yes she did, as well as an upcoming Finger Lakes mini-conference. Look for more on these coming soon!
A scene from our “long, strange trip” with Jane last year.
Steph & Val met Jane last year during our preview for our Certified Wine Educator credentials; it’s an all-day event that Jane refers to as the long, strange trip but it was love at first sip.
Our Factoid this week:
Steph stumbled across an article in the recent issue of The Somm Journal titled ”The Monk’s Elixir” that covers Montefalco Sagrantino. The grape hails from land-locked Umbria. Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCG is 100% Sagrantino and takes it’s name from the “sacrament.” Dry (secco) styles have power like Brunello but with more robust fruit tannins and less obvious oak. These wines can age for decades (Val just drank her 2004 last year, so give these wines about a decade). The passito style is made from dried Sagrantino grapes and is sweet and port-like. While the grape almost disappeared in the 1960’s, there are just under 1000 hectares growing today, mostly in the Montefalco region of Umbria.
Montefalco Sagrantino 2006 Passito by Paolo Bea
Our Shoutout & Wino Radar were combined this week: Il Posto on 17th Street in Denver – OMG!!! That place was “on point” and our server Phillip took such good care of us. We had some interesting wines you don’t find every day and the food? Well, Andrea is serving up some authentic and delicious plates of happiness.
At Il Posto we met up with one of our listeners, Douglas Trapasso from Chicago, and he gave us some words about W25 which we played for you in this episode.
Lunch at Il Posto with Val, Douglas, & Steph
He did ask for more interviews and geeky wines. Just so you know we’re on it, Douglas!
Another shoutout went to Lynn in Bordeaux. She’s there for two years while her hubby completes his master’s in viticulture and wine management. Lynn’s studying French and for the Level 2 WSET certification. She says, “Just listened to your WinetwoFive episode on games- loved it. I found the WSET geography app and checked out the Butler…I failed miserably ;-( I especially like what you said- you don’t hop on FB when waiting, you hop on a wine education type app. I’m always looking for ways to organize more efficiently, get more done, how best to study, etc. I’m taking on your method!”
Thank you, Lynn! We so appreciate that last week’s episode brought you and so many of our other listeners hours of wine geek fun!
The downloads in the last week showed us that you all are truly enjoying getting your wine geek on. Did you have a favorite game or app? Let us know or share your score, maybe challenge some other listeners on our facebook page!
Which brings us to next week:
Thanksgiving – of course! What are you most thankful for? The plan is to keep next week’s episode short, sweet and to the point since we went long this week. We, of course, are thankful for all of you who hang out with us each and every week. Happy Thanksgiving!
Until then, you can listen to Episode 32 in its entirety: Episode 32: The Bubbly Professor in the House