Getting Started

Here we go, my first blog post! With all my enthusiasm for wine, I figured I need an outlet for my mania. You may also notice the word exploring in the title. I enjoy exploring new places in the natural world, as well as the wine world, so this will be a part of it.

Let's talk about what I like about wine- it's delicious, refreshing, exciting, interesting, and unique. It's sophisticated and complicated, yet can be affordable and accessible to anyone. Best of all, we live in a Golden Age of wine making, where very decent wines can be had at very modest prices. And let's talk about price, shall we? I don't see any reason why most people need to spend more than about $12 on a bottle of wine. So many unique, delicious wines can be had for this price.

So how do you know what is good, how do you pick out something? Well, that isn't as easy. If you've never tried a wine before, it's almost a crapshoot as to if you will like it or not. The label can't tell you how good a wine is, and neither can the brand. Even the same wine from the same place varies from year to year.

One rule of thumb I use is I avoid the brands of: Beringer, Sutter Home, and Turning leaf. These wines aren't bad per se, but they are made in mass quantities and I find aren't very tastey or unique. Instead I recommend operations like Little Penquin and Yellow Tail (both from Austrailia), and Mirassou from California (more about that later).

Another thing to remember is to know what you like. You may find that sweeter wines appeal to your taste, or you might like lighter flavored whites. In time you will probably find that the more wine you drink, the more you start to appreciate many different types and styles of wine. I used to hate dry whites, and now I can tolerate them. I've also went from just drinking blush(or rose) wines to now preferring bold reds. (thanks Grandma!) Anyway, I look forward to talking about and hopefully educating people a little bit on wines as time goes on. Cheers!