Prior Personal Experience with Wine

        Prior to taking this course it is fair to say my experience with wine has been limited.  There are only four previous experience I can think of that I have had with wine to this point, and they have all been this year since turning 21 in September.  And no, I did not swirl, smell, or otherwise engage in the aesthetic experience of any of these wines, but I did drink them all in wine glasses (though probably of the wrong variety). 

        The first was an outing with a graduated friend and to Olive Garden (and yes I did notice on the Syllabus that Boyer doesn't count this particular establishment as a wine tasting event, but I will work with what experience I have).  We hadn't planned to drink, having his nearly one year old son in tow, but when offered a taste, we didn't turn it down--myself selecting the white and he the red.  I tried the red wine my friend had and absolutely hated it.  It was bitter, and positively made my taste buds revolt in contest to the audacity of putting that particular beverage in my mouth.  The white wine however I quite enjoyed.  I believe it was a pino grigio of some variety, and it was sweet, smooth and utterly delicious.  I don't remember anything else about what it tasted like, but I do remember that I enjoyed it enough to order a full glass.

        Secondly, I had a mimosa and mudslide night with a good friend of mine.  She brought over a bottle of champagne for the mimosas.  Honestly it was probably a very cheap bottle and it also tasted like it, but went just fine with a large heaping helping of OJ.

My third experience was helping my roommate select a bottle of wine on a whim at Food Lion to go with dinner.  We agreed on a white wine that was sweet and after inspecting the shelves settled on a bottle of Naked Grape Pino Grigio that was $7.  It was nearly as smooth as the variety I had tried previously and left a bitter aftertaste.  While the others seemed to like it, no one could have been too fond of it because the unfinished bottle still sits atop my refrigerator (yes, I know, a place that Tuesday's lecture taught destroys wine by constantly changing temperature).

        I personally bought my first bottle of wine on Christmas Eve this year.  I was on my way back to the house and my grandmother asked me to bring home apple cider, but the liquid kind, not the kind in packets.  Of course it is 9 pm and nothing is open except for the drug stores, none of which happen to have apple cider.  I can't come home empty handed, especially after investing such effort in looking, and so I browse around the store for some other peace offering for my failure.  Low and behold I stumble across the wine, and a sales clerk happens to walk by.  I asked  him for a good recommendation on wines in the store and after telling him my grandmother liked red wine he helped me select a bottle of Beringer Pink Moscato.

        Upon arriving home, I chilled the wine for half an hour (finally some standard of wine I got right, even though I didn't know it at the time), and then realized we didn't have a corkscrew.  So obviously I proceeded to open the bottle anyway with a screw, screw driver, and a pair of pliers.  And it almost worked too, that is until the cork broke in half with only the top half released from the bottle.  When I then attempted to retrieve the second half it proceeded to fall into the bottle--which I took as an invitation to finish the bottle.  It was generally good but had an unpleasant aftertaste, however, notably a better one than the Naked Grape Pino Grigio.  I handled this problem by just continuing to drink it and avoid the aftertaste, especially the repeated experience of it from casually sipping.  I can definitely see where a higher quality wine of this variety would be very pleasant to drink with a smoother overall taste.
         Now looking forward, in this course, first and foremost I hope to learn what wine I like and what wine I do not (and hopefully without wasting too much money on the unfortunate tasting stuff in the process).  Additionally, I will be taking a European adventure this summer and would like to be well versed in the prominent wines of the areas and countries I visit, and actually know enough about my likes/dislikes in wine to enjoy what these places have to offer.  I don’t want to go through Europe and later realize I missed the experience to try a renown alcoholic beverage of a particular locale equating to not trying champagne in Champagne or beer in Germany.

        So there's an overview of my previous wine likes, dislikes, and faux pas and here's to tasting better and more delicious wines, cheers!