His name is Bill Stobie. And you would want him with you in a foxhole if you were in a firefight. Meet Bill in this video.
In 2018, on the weekends during the winter, we introduced a “blind-tasting” challenge. We invited guests to come in and sit with a flight of six wines. They were wines made from six different grapes, either six white or six red. We told the guests what the typical flavor characteristics of each variety was, but we did not tell them which wine was which. It was their task to see if they could match the wine to the descriptions we provided
This is an example of the information we provided to each guest. They had six white wines in front of them, and they had to figure out which was which.
We blind-tasted a different set of six wines over several weeks. One guy and his wife—Bill and Jane—came to almost all of these tastings. Bill took his time tasting each wine and reading the descriptors. He was very methodical. Of all our guests that season, by far, he identified the most number of wines accurately. That was Bill Stobie.
Bill clearly had an interest in wine. We needed people like that to work in our Tasting Room. We asked him and his wife if they would come to work for us in the tasting room. Anyone who was this careful about understanding the wine in the glass would surely make a great member of our tasting room staff. Both Bill and Jane said yes.
We soon learned more about Bill. He taught carpentry at BOCES for 43 years. He was also a member of the volunteer fire department and also was a Boy Scout leader. Needless to say, he is a very capable guy.
In 2020, Covid rules required us to serve guests seated and also serve them something to eat. We built patio seating for groups of two and four, and we left plenty of space between them across our large lawn overlooking the lake. For shade, we bought umbrellas—lots of them.
Our tasting staff became servers and bussers, taking orders, delivering wine and food and picking up dishes. It was not uncommon for a server to have more than 25,000 steps during a normal shift.
We have an expansive set of patios on our lawn for guests, each with one or two umbrellas (above left); it can get windy, and many umbrella poles have broken and needed to be replaced (above center); and over the winter, we need a way to store and move the umbrellas around in the warehouse.
When any of the more than 30 umbrellas tipped over in wind and the posts broke, we asked Bill if he could fabricate new poles. He replaced a lot of poles. He also designed and built the umbrella storage rack that we could move around the warehouse with a pallet jack.
Once the Covid rules were lifted, we offered seated service under a covered pavilion. We needed tables for our guests. We had several large oak trees on our farm that needed to come down. Bill mentioned that he and one of his sons can take down large trees. Bill was our guy.
After a local sawmill cut the oak into planks, we dried and gave them to Bill to turn into tables. Which he did.
There are any number of things that come up that need solutions of one kind or another. Our Tasting Room service staff told us we needed to let our guests know what our tipping policy was. We needed some kind of sign that we could place discreetly on our tasting bars and outdoor tables.
It can get windy when we do our tasting outside. Ordinary table-tops signs would blow away. So that was a problem, and we asked Bill what he would recommend as a solution.
He made a prototype out of a piece of heavy granite. We glued our small sign to the granite base. Bill made 25 of them for us. They are durable, and they don’t blow away.
No job is too large or too small for Bill. There are at least another dozen enhancements or modifications that he has made for us since the days when he identified all those wines in those blind-tastings. We are very fortunate that he and his wife Jane have been part of our team.
Fabulous story!
Bill and Jane are people who make the world go around (better)!