Part 2: Chocolate love, with thanks to my mom

Judith Lewis is about as passionate as you can get about wine and food. (Listen to Part One if you want to hear how Judith’s mom forced her to taste everything and why she’s grateful for it.)

Judith loves wine AND chocolate, and she is an international judge of both products. She gives us some insight into how you can improve your taste and smell of, you guessed it! Chocolate and wine.

After listening to this interview, you might find yourself rushing out to buy that special bar of chocolate or that great bottle of wine. All we ask that you do is to savour it.

Get your taste buds ready, pop open your sense of humour, and let’s listen to Part 2 of my interview with Judith Lewis.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Learn how to have an in-depth ability to judge the smell and taste of wine and chocolate.
• Find out how wine is interconnected with the chocolate world.
• Discover the world of artisanal chocolate and why it’s worth your money.
• Know about an excellent principle to live by when getting involved with wine and chocolates.
• Hear about tips and techniques on starting your journey to becoming so well-versed in the taste and smell of wine and chocolates.

Judith Lewis is a renowned international speaker, writer, trainer, blogger, and digital media consultant specialising in applying strategic understanding of digital technologies to help businesses innovate and optimise their effectiveness within the new, networked communications environment. She has over 25 years of experience, predating Google in her entry into the market, and now runs her own consultancy. Judith also blogs about chocolate, has contributed to a book on web development and writes about best practices for Search Engine Optimization..

Deploying her skills across a number of sectors, Judith learned about winemaking quite late and how now joined an organization to assist in the digitisation of the wine sector. Furthering the use of various emerging and established technologies within vineyards, Judith is also working with everything from blockchain to Raspberry Pi to digitise the wine sector, including utilising big data and algorithms.

Judith works with companies large and small and is passionate about enabling businesses to take control of their digital elements by understanding them better.

And best of all, Judith continues to grow her knowledge and experience in wine by following her nose (thanks, Mom!) and by tasting wine around the world.

Get in touch with Judith Lewis:

• Website: http://mostlyaboutchocolate.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/judithlewis
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mostlyaboutchoc/
• Email add: decabbit@gmail.com

Topics Covered:

00:43 – How passion drives everything you do in life

03:54 – What it takes to be a judge in competitions for wine and chocolate [a super taster and smeller]

06:45 – Being a part of the grand jury of the Academy of Chocolates that is committed to advancing the cause of artisanal chocolates

10:41 – Why we need to always smell things before putting them into our mouth

12:42 – Here’s what you can do when you want to really get involved with wine and chocolate tasting

15:02 – What she would have done differently and told herself 20 years ago

Quotes from Judith Lewis:

“You can make some fantastic pairings of wine and chocolate.”

“When you start eating things, eat a little bit thoughtfully; it’s very taxing at first, but eat thoughtfully.”

“I pay attention to smell and taste because I was forced to eat so many things as a child. I’m not down on my mom. I think it was a fantastic thing that she did to me.”

“Chocolate opened up a large world for me and gave me some of the techniques that I needed in order to become a better taster and a better judge and exposed me to the judging process.”

“Don’t just swallow food without chewing or swallow your wine without giving it a chance just to coat your mouth and let yourself experience it.”