Smelly

The other day a "new to the business" salesman came trudging through the door, wine bag stuffed to overflowing, nervously asking everyone if they were the one he was to taste on his wines...he seemed clumsy, disheveled and after hearing him tell Bennett that his Syrah was one "for the ladies" I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore him, (just hate that kind of comment, what the hell does that mean?)....thing was I could not ignore him because his cologne was filling up the store causing my already overactive nose to go haywire! Not only was he wearing way too much it smelled like, "saved for a special occasion" cologne...that means old. Cologne unlike wine does not get better with age folks, it starts to turn and they all start smelling like, "old lady perfume".

I was reading a post on a food board and the person was talking about the wonderful pizza at Mozza but then went on to say that when a group of people sat next to them rather than smelling the sausage pizza they were about to eat all they could smell was their neighbors perfume. That same thing has happened to on many occasions, some cases so bad that the offensive smell affects the flavor of my food! I'm sure these people are not trying to ruin my meal but that little bath in really aggressive aromas does indeed affect others.

We get complaints all the time at The Wine Country during wine tastings about people wearing cologne....not much we can do, we have asked that people not wear perfume but short of tossing them we are stuck. A couple of weeks ago I was pouring and a woman in front of me asked what kind of aromas I was getting from one of the wines we were serving. I poured myself a glass and as I brought it to my nose another taster approached the table, "What do you smell?" she asked. "Wow, really strong perfume" I replied. The smell was so strong in fact that it hung on to the back of my nasal passage and when I tasted the wine, ode ala pee-eww was all I could taste!

I know everyone has different levels of sensitivity but trust me more than two squirts and you are entering "stinky" territory. Too much of even a nice smell is still too much and when we are talking about going to an event where people are trying to smell something specific...it really isn't you that they have come to smell....you are effecting/altering their experience and to some that is down right rude. I too was once an abuser of smelly junk, back in my hood rat days I used to douse myself in, get this Polo Cologne! It was the thug's scent of choice and would splash it all over myself, that was until one afternoon while riding the bus someone in a very loud voice said, "Damn who took the bath in Polo?!"....being 13 I wanted to crawl under a rock. I went like 4 stops past my stop hoping they would get off the bus before me so I would not be fingered as the stinky one.

After that day I was much more gentle with my smelly junk hand but once I got into the wine business I went from using perfume once in awhile, (NEVER at work) to giving it up for good. The more sensitive my nose got the less I could even tolerate smells on me....not to mention I find more earthy smells sexier, skin, clean fresh sweat grrrr much more attractive to me.
The reason for this mini rant is to kind of plant a seed....please people, Think before you squirt.

And this concludes our public service announcement.