The story of how I became the first Japanese person to work at a Basque winery. Part 2: Changing jobs to a liquor store

Changing jobs to a liquor store

Moving from working at a restaurant to a liquor store.
Actually, the reason for this career change was that the restaurant work was so intense that I felt I couldn't handle it anymore, both mentally and physically.
After quitting the restaurant, I took a break for a while and thought, 'I need to start working again soon... but I want to take a break from jobs that require intense, long-hour customer service like in the food and beverage industry...' when I noticed there was a lovely liquor store near my house.
When I went to the store, I saw a 'Staff Wanted' poster! Although it was still a customer service job, it was a different style from a restaurant, and above all, it reminded me that I was someone who loved wine, so I decided to try working there part-time as a form of rehabilitation.
This is a bit of a digression, but when you are mentally and physically exhausted, you tend to forget what you like or what you are good at. That was exactly me at the time.
I later thought that perhaps God had prepared this encounter with the store for me, as if saying, 'You liked wine, didn't you!? Why don't you work here? It's close to home, and you don't even need to take the train.'

An overwhelming volume of wine to handle

The biggest difference between being at a restaurant and joining a liquor store was that the variety of wines handled at the store was on a completely different level. When I worked at a restaurant, there were staff members with sommelier certifications, so I could leave all customer questions and bottle consultations to them. My own skill level only needed to be enough to explain the differences in taste between a few types of wine by the glass.
However, that doesn't work at a liquor store. Of course, there were certified staff members, but they weren't always there, so I had to acquire knowledge myself. And the big difference from a restaurant is that customers 'don't drink on the spot.' In a restaurant, you can see the customer's reaction as they drink, but in a liquor store, they basically buy it and drink it at home. That is precisely why I had to have a firm grasp of the characteristics of each and every bottle of wine. And I also needed the skills to convey that to customers in an easy-to-understand way!

Moving one step closer to the producers

From the perspective of wine distribution, there was also something that changed from my restaurant days.
The process until the wine reaches the person who finally drinks it is
Producer ➠ Importer ➠ Liquor Store ➠ Restaurant or Individual
This is the flow. (Roughly speaking)
In other words, in this flow, a liquor store is one step closer to the producer than a restaurant. While this often requires more knowledge, conversely, it can be said that there are 'more chances to learn about the producers.' This was very interesting to me.
What kind of land, what kind of people, and what kind of thoughts were put into making this wine?
In my restaurant days, I often just deepened my knowledge of the 'taste,' but through my experience at the liquor store, I became able to look at wine from various other angles.

My first time in France, my first winery visit

I enjoyed working at this store so much that I went from being a part-timer to a full-time employee, and I became even more deeply hooked on wine and alcohol.
And when I was 27, I was able to go to France for the first time on a company tour. And this was my first overseas experience.
My first time abroad was a company tour. And it turned out to be quite an intense experience, traveling almost all around France in about a week, with winery visits every day!
I went to the places where the wines I usually introduce at the store are born, was shown the vineyards and wineries, and above all, I thought about many things through my interactions with the producers who make them.

I think the experience I had at this time was the trigger for me to become even more deeply hooked on wine.

A change of heart after the trip to France.

Having had the great experience of actually visiting the producers, when I returned to the store, my desire to share and convey that grew stronger.
I held seminars, wrote tons of POP signs, and compiled what I had experienced into booklets.
While doing such things, I encountered a side of myself I hadn't even expected.
'I don't understand this producer at all.'
That was the feeling.

The reason I felt this way was that while I was compiling my experiences into materials, I felt a strong sense of discomfort with myself for having written, 'This producer was this kind of person.'
It is true that I visited them, and that is not a lie. And compared to someone who has never been there, one might say I 'know' that winery.
But I had only spent a few hours there at most in a single day. The feeling arose: do I really know this person well enough to say, 'This producer is this kind of person'?

It might have been easier if I could have just honestly said, 'I went there! They were this kind of person!' But this feeling that welled up inside me—that 'it's not a lie that I went, but I just went'—would become a very important feeling for me later on.

I'll tell you about that next time✨️

Eskerrik asko! 'Thank you' in Basque