My Wine Experience

For my first blog post, I thought I would discuss my familiarity with wine as it is right now, which is not that great honestly.  My personal experience with wine so far has been pretty sporadic at best.  Most of what I have learned about wine has been in person.  My parents do not really drink wine and my brothers do not drink much of it either, although I’m sure if this blog were directed toward beer one of my brothers might be able to provide more knowledge of the subject.

I’ll start off with what I know, or at least what I think I know so far.  I’ve tried wine when I can, whether it be grabbing a small bottle of something new or sampling a bottle that a friend has gotten.  I can’t say much toward the brands of wine.  Barefoot would probably be the only one I could actually name and that would be because it is ubiquitous around here.  It may be toward the more inexpensive side but all their wines have tasted decently.  There is also a brand with a chicken on the label which I can only remember because it makes no logical connection to wine in my mind.  Oh well. While I generally just go to Kroger for wine, I have been to the Vintage Cellar quite a few times and discovered that their weekly sale items are always a great buy.  I’m looking forward to adding a few of them to this week’s future tasting blogs.

Now let’s get to the actual wine.  For the most part my tastes tend to learn toward white wine over red wine.  I am used to the system that refers to the type of grape so that is what I will stick with right now.  Moscato and Riesling comprise most of what I enjoy drinking.  That’s not to say I don’t have any interest in trying red wine or anything new.  Of the few red wines I have tried, I did like Cabernet Sauvignon but the Merlot I tried really just didn’t do it for me.  Of course, I never tried them with food so I’m hoping to start experimenting with matching these wines with food to make them more palatable.   Additionally, I have had Champaign on a number of occasions.  Most of the time it was at weddings so I couldn’t tell you anything specific other than it was good.  Over Christmas I actually tried Sherry once because my grandmother suggested it and it’s probably the only thing I have ever seen her drink (also she is 90 years old so how could I even so no?).  I found it quite tasty, probably because it was sweeter than the non-fortified red wine I have tasted before.  The only other wine I can think of having tried was a type of German wine that was heated and had different fruit slices and spices added to it.  It was delicious, but very different from everything else I have drunk before.

Well I think that should just about cover it for now.  Not really a great amount of experience with wine.  No real strategy toward what I try other than simply what seems like it will be good at the time when I see it.  Maybe I will work on a slightly more organized approach toward the future.  Anyway, cheers to the rest of the semester!  This class just might help me get through a few of my others...