Howard W. Hewitt – I thought I’d give the Grunge a break as he counts down to Big Bash and provide him with a blog entry!

There is so much preparation that goes on behind the scenes for our annual alumni reunion weekend it’s hard to share all of the effort the College staff puts into this biggest of weekends.

No stone goes unturned! No effort is too big! No sacrifice was too big to assure the visiting graduates have a great experience.

To that noble effort let’s add that no wine goes unsipped!

Mary Jo Arthur, General Manager of campus catering company Bon Appetit, mentioned early in our Big Bash planning cycle that some graduates had wished for a better selection of wine during the evening meals.

Someone had to step up to the challenge, so I and a couple of other oenophile types agreed to form Wabash’s first “Official Beverage Committee.”

Arthur arranged a tasting during the spring for our committee to help select palatable wines that weren’t just the standard Merlot and Chardonnay choices! It was a tough task!

We selected a couple of interesting red wines for dinner along with some wines for Tommy’s Scarlett Nickel but we didn’t like the white wine choices. The committee reluctantly agreed another session would be in order.

So Arthur and her wine distributor set up another seven white wines for us to taste May 27. We found a couple of great selections for Friday and Saturday night’s dinner.

For those of us who are really into wine, we knew that Wabash could provide a much better vino for the buck. So we formed a committee of me, BKT Assistant Professor of Biology Patrick Burton as the resident wine geeks, along with the more pedestrian palates of the Grunge, and then Sports Information Director Brent Harris. The Bon Appetit folks joined us as well.

The results: Friday’s Big Bash Banquet: Green Lion Cabernet Sauvignon, will be the red and Donnafugata Anthilia will be the white. At Saturday’s Reunion dinners we’ll serve Calina Reserva Carmenere, a Chilian Red wine, and Oberon Sauvignon Blanc for the white.

The wines served at the Scarlett Nickel will be a variety of other wines we tasted and liked.

The Big Bash is lots of preparation and tough work, but we all sacrifice for “Ol Wabash!”

Photo: Patrick Burton tries one for the team

Did he say the Grunge had a pedestrian palate?