UCF alum visits campus years later

It's been 25 years since Carl McKnight has seen his alma mater, and he's freaking out.

Taking a brief break from wine-tastings he's been holding in the Orlando area to promote his winery's best, to catch up with an old friend, McKnight once again set foot on the UCF campus to find it completely different.

"When I came back Wednesday night, I was freaked out," McKnight, 48, said. "When I enrolled at UCF, there were about 12,000 students. When I graduated in 1985, there were 18,000, but now there are over 51,000. When I went, I had a biology class and we would go out beyond the reflecting pond, and it would be nothing but Cypress groves where we would do lessons. Now, all of that is covered in buildings."

Of course, not everything has changed, he remembers the old dorms and the disc golf course, which he was pleased to find still intact.

But perhaps what has remained most constant is that McKnight is still in the industry he began working in during college as a part-time employee for ABC liquors and then later for the Miller Brewing company.

His focus has shifted to wine now after moving to Oregon from Florida because of "girl problems" and marrying into his wife's family-owned and operated winery: St. Josef's, where he does everything from promotions, like this past week's wine-tastings, to perfecting his wine's chemistry in the cellar.

"In the beverage business, it's all about chemistry," McKnight said. "All the boring subjects are important."

St. Josef's is an estate vineyard and winery in the Willamette Valley that produces small batches of five white wines and five reds, along with a few barrel-select reserve selections, that Portland Monthly Magazine named the best "sipping spot" in June 2009.

"Carl played soccer with my husband and was a groomsman in our wedding, so when I heard about these wine tastings and his business, I was shocked. I had to go," Barbara Truman, director of Course Design and Development for the Center for Distributed Learning at UCF, said.

McKnight hosts his wine-tastings with comedic introductions and wine-induced red cheeks saying, before he pours Lilli, the name of the founder's reserve white wine and also the name of his mother-in-law, that this wine is mature and sophisticated not bitter and old.

He is hoping that these wine-tastings will create another market for his wines in his home state.

"The wine is actually very good. I'm a fan of red wine but I like this white wine. It doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste and it's not as oaky," Scott Kirkpatrick, 48, said after sampling Lilli wine.

McKnight is not as choosy about his wines as his customers, saying his "favorite bottle is the open bottle."

Each St. Josef bottle carries a label that looks like a miniature French cabaret poster in the vein of Le Chat Noir found at the turn of the last century—no doubt a choice informed in part by McKnight's degree in art.

McKnight, who also has a degree in journalism, found that his part-time job in the beverage industry earned him more than his freelance art did and made the switch, however he is grateful he has both degrees as he feels they have made him a better communicator.

"I can teach people wine, but not how to deal with people," McKnight said.

Perhaps McKnight should have known that art would come second to the beverage industry after making floats in college.

"Back when I was in college, 19 was the drinking age, and we would make these floats that drove through campus and in the floats would be an open bar," McKnight said. "One time we built this giant knight whose head could be dismantled. The head was a keg and we rolled it into the Tangerine Bowl and had beer in the stadium.

You couldn't do that now. You'd get thrown off campus."

In addition to float making and drinking, McKnight bench warmed for the soccer team, was president of his fraternity, worked at the Student Union and was a cartoonist for the Central Florida Future.

"I drew cartoons for the Future and in my senior year they brought in this new editor who changed the layout and didn't want me to be the cartoonist anymore. For the last two weeks that year, I made a UCF enquirer and put it on top of all the Central Florida Futures. I just got a bunch of my friends together and we drew these cartoons and wrote these stories that were just bad college humor."

His final piece of advice to his fellow Knights: "It's not what you study but you get out of college that matters".

Surely he is proof of that.

For more information on how to find St. Josef's locally or to attend a wine-tasting, visit Tim's Wine Market at www.timswine.com.