Chase
I grew up in a family where wine was not part of life. From time to time my mother might buy a cheep bottle for a recipe she wanted to try. After that night the bottle would sit in the back of the fridge and wait for my step-father to grow tired of pushing it aside while trying to get at the leftovers. When he did (and he always did) he’d uncork the thing and pour it down the drain. To be honest with you, wine was so much not a part of our lives that this might have only happened once.
It wasn’t till three years after moving out that I became interested in wine. Working at a coffee shop on my college campus one May I filled the slow hours by reading though a stack of Wall Street Journals that had been left in the shop. Stumbling though the papers I discovered a weekly wine column and, curious, began to read. I was shocked by the poetic nature of the pieces. The idea that black berry and pepper could “turn” in the back of ones mouth not only made me laugh, but it made me continue to read.
Returning home that summer I hinted to my mother that I was going to start drinking wine by buying the Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil and when I landed a waiting job that required me to open wine bottles at the table, I used the excuse “I need to know how to open a bottle for work” as a doorway into what I like to call my “One Wine a Week Summer”.
I tell you all of this because I still remember how awkward it can be to buy a bottle of wine for that first, second and third time. To be honest I felt awkward that whole summer. It was not until December of that year (when my step-father asked me what to do about wine for Christmas) that I even-began to feel comfortable with wine. With that in mind, let’s talk about what you can expect from me.
To start off I will do a Wednesday Weekly* geared to practically introducing people with little to no experience drinking and buying wine to the process. Along with the Wednesday Weeklies I will do one or two smaller posts highlighting little finds I discover as I to continue to learn and grow in my appreciation for wine. Eventually I will get to tasting wine and grading it, but for now I think it a better to teach you how to enjoy wine than by telling you what wines you will enjoy (you will learn quickly that all of that is relative anyway).
Untangling the vines of wine culture-
one word at a time.
-Chase
*This should give you enough time to read the article before the weekend’s festivities.
