Hip Tastes Blog

Semillon or Celine Dion? You Decide.
filed under: Ramblings

How do you get a room full of executives to do the wave while one of their colleagues belts out Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" at the front of the room? First you give them lots of wine, then you mistake one of them for offering "Celine Dion" instead of "Semillon" (sounds like say-me-yon) in response to a question about common white grapes found in France. I'd been drinking a bit along with them (occupational hazard), but I think it's pushing it to say I was tipsy...

Instead, it was just a really rambunctious group, and we'd been joking around pretty much throughout my presentation (I was hired to do a wine and food pairing presentation along with my friend Erika Heinemann of Savvy Wine Food). Add to this the fact that no one in the room was particularly well-versed in wine minutia (sometimes a welcome relief!), and I thought the guy was just being funny.

But no, turns out he knew about the white grape Semillon, commonly grown in Bordeaux, and just mispronounced it. As a French speaker, I didn't at first grasp his anglified version of "Semillon," and repeated back, "Celine Dion?!" By the time the room stopped laughing - including yours truly - I decided to offer up the grand prize of the day (a deluxe wine opening and serving kit) to whomever would come up to the front of the room and actually sing a Celine Dion song.

I was half joking, but this gal jumped up immediately and announced that she could sing "any Celine Dion song" (is it just me or will people do pretty much anything after drinking a bunch of wine?). Well, what do you know, her colleague who'd organized the meeting had - bingo! - a whole buncha the chanteuse's songs on her iPod, already conveniently hooked up to the sound system. A few moments later I watched in awe as hands were raised towards the ceiling and the wave put into full effect, while "Because You Loved Me" reverberated throughout the room.

I have never, EVER seen anything like that during my brief tenure hosting corporate wine tastings, but I hope similar situations follow suit. I have to add that before she sang, the gal mumbled on her way up to the stage, "I'm totally getting fired for this."

A hundred bucks says she gets a promotion.

Posted by Courtney on September 6, 2007 08:12 PM