Pamela Wood teaching to the crowds
Pamela Wood, CWE, CSW, CS, did not initially intend to find a place in the world of wine. She was introduced to wine in a Wine Appreciation class at the University of Santa Cruz in the 80s, but took a different career path in real estate finance; she spent a decade at this in the Silicon Valley–Bay area and became the youngest woman to become the regional President of the California Mortgage Brokers Association.
However, she had a passion beyond real estate: skiing. She had skied in many places in the United States and Europe, but knowing of its reputation for the best snow around, she moved to Utah in 1998 and pursued a career in the ski industry. Travelling became a larger part of her life, and she often found herself near a wine region: Hunter Valley, Champagne, Burgundy, Provence, Tuscany, Piedmont. She realized she had an interest and passion for wine—what goes in the bottle, where it comes from, how its made, the history and culture behind it. And this was the passion she made her own.
Pamela Wood in Oregon’s Willamette Valley
She also found that her adopted state of Utah did not have the wine education resources that California has. So she began to study on her own, reading, learning, tasting. She organized friends and had monthly tastings on a specific topic. She kept studying, and realized it was time to get serious. The closest certifying body she could find that seemed to fit into her life was the International Wine Guild in Denver, Colorado; she registered for and passed her Level 1 Sommelier exam. On the flight back from Denver, she had a voice message from the Park City’s Fox School of Wine asking if she was interested in teaching.
She accepted, and has been teaching there since 2011. In 2012, she opened the Park City Wine Club, a thriving social members organization, through which she leads wine events, food and wine pairings, wine dinners and private events throughout the Park City area and indeed the state. She expanded the Club in 2015 to include wine tours, and she has taken people to California, Oregon, Washington, and even to Hawaii for the Kapalua Wine Festival. In 2019, she will offer a tour to Spain and Southwest France.
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Still, Pamela was eager to learn more, and that’s when she found the Society of Wine Educators. She sat for and passed the CSW in 2015. Still yearning for more, she decided to study for the CWE designation. At the time, she was working for world class resorts, running her own business, and to add still more into the mix was asked to become the wine educator for the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control for the State of Utah, which involves teaching wine classes to employees of state liquor and wine stores. So, study time was limited at best. However, she utilized all the resources she could lay her hands on: the new CSW workbook, flashcards, quizzes, and other tools offered by the SWE.
She made her way to her first SWE conference this past August in New York, attended the CWE Boot Camp, and took the exam. She was hoping to pass maybe three areas, but she passed the exam in its entirety on her first attempt, did her presentation in October, and was awarded her CWE on 1 November 2018.
Pamela continues to run the Park City Wine Club. She has also signed on as the Director of Education for the Culinary Wine Institute, and develops training for resorts and restaurants nationwide to educate servers, increase wine sales, and improve overall customer satisfaction. And, she continues in her other venues to teach and travel. She has ended up far from where she thought she would be back at the beginning. But, as Pamela herself says: “I am so lucky to have developed my passion into a career, its hard to call this work when you love what you do!”
Guest post written by Reverend Paul Bailey