28 February 2016
Today marks the beginning of a semester filled with learning, wine tasting, and graduating from graduate school. I enrolled in John Boyer's "Geography of Wines" course during my final semester because I consider learning how to properly drink a necessary life skill. Not in the classic, college sense of binge drinking cheap liquor and beer on a Thursday night, but rather how to perfect the art of pairing wine with food, develop a refined taste for quality libations, and pretty much just figure out how to act like an adult.
As far as a wine connoisseur is concerned, I'm about as amateur as it gets. I can't tell you the difference between a merlot or a malbec. I don't know the least bit about where the best grapes are grown or why it matters. All that I can tell you is that I'm not a fan of the white wines, but that $10 and under red wine rack at Kroger is my jam when the girlfriend is in town. I pick bottles based on a combination of label, name, and cost . Probably not the best strategy, but it hasn't done me wrong thus far.
The plan for this semester is to expose myself to intricacies of the wine world, and convey my experiences in whichever way possible. Southwestern Virginia is the launching point for this endeavor, but at least one spring break trip to LA in March should help broaden this wine experience outside of the east coast. Who knows? Maybe even a few trips back to the home region of the Midwest might add a little extra kick to the experience.
All in all, I hope this blog can act as a amateur guide for other millennials who are trying to figure out life and could use a bottle of wine or two or three along the way.
-W.
"Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read." -Sir Francis Bacon
