Dedicating my first blog to a wine-filled experience just feels
right. I think it really suits my senior year and I am confident that I will
greatly expand my wine knowledge as well. My goal is to become cultured and
informed, yet not to the point of a snob. Instead, I want to be known as the
go-to person about wine. I will consider myself accomplished if I am able to
get my mother out of her Yellow Tail Merlot obsession and onto new favorites, solely
due to my expert suggestion. I also hope to get myself out of my own White
Zinfandel rut.
I am most interested in the various ingredients and circumstances that
influence the taste of wine. The slight wine experience I have has showed me that some wines are more bearable than others. I am the least picky
person and love all different flavors, but I would love to understand the
science behind the different hints of flavor in a glass of wine. Additionally,
I want to know why some wines are so expensive and how bottles of wine are
priced the way they are. I have come across some pretty cheap bottles that I
think are delicious and other pricy splurges that end up not fulfilling my expectations.
Overall, I am looking forward to not only tasting more wine, but knowing more
about the wine and its story. (As cheesy as that sounds.)
I started off drinking wine the classy
way: from a cheap box. Being a college student on a budget, I had to make some
compromises for quality. Most of the wine I have ventured to try has somewhat
depended on the biggest bang for my buck. Sutter Home White Zinfandel is
probably my favorite….so it is safe to say I have not tried a whole lot of wine.
My first experiences of wine lead me to believe all red was dry and white often
times seemed too sweet. These first impressions confirmed that my White Zin was
the perfect combination of the two. The pink crisp flavor was an easy favorite.
Now that I am tired of the usual, I have been on the search for a new favorite.
I have come to love any wine that has a fruity and refreshing taste but I also have starting
trying everything from Chardonnay to Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon to Pinot
Grigio. The wines that are extremely sweet, like Moscoto and Riesling, have
stuck out as wines that I can see myself without. Anything that is too strong
in a specific area, such as being too sweet or oak-like, I have found are not
among my favorite.
My previous wine tastings have mostly consisted of Yellow Tail and
other similar killer deals that pop up all over Costco. Pretty wine bottles and decorative labels also
tend to draw my attention at Trader Joe’s. The amount of wine I have tried is
hard to gauge, but my normal consumption is around a few times a week. I love
having a glass of wine with dinner and I don’t pass up the opportunity to order
various wines whenever I am out to eat. I visited my first wine tasting
establishment while in New Zealand and tried all variations of wines. I didn't pay too much attention to the actual flavor of the wine because the
experience in general was so new and exciting. More recently, I expanded my
taste pallet and visited the newly opened Bull Run Winery near my house. I
participated in a tasting there with a bunch of my friends and for the first
time referenced the taste to the paper description placed in front of me. It
was so entertaining to see which wines different people liked and again I was
just consumed by the atmosphere. Now it is time to buckle down and actually pay
more attention to the specific flavors and uniqueness each wine had to offer. With
the only other experiences being Wednesday wine nights with my roommates and
occasional wine with dinner, I have a lot of work to do.
All I know is that my
wine experience is just beginning. Here goes senior year...and wandering
through it with wine.
