So this happens to be my first ever blog, therefore also being my first ever blog post.  And what's better to write about than drinking wine? Anyway I grew up in a household where drinking wine is a second nature.  My parents have, as long as I can remember, been big wine drinkers.  The stuff is consumed every night, and I'd say when we go through a bottle every night between four of us!  Growing up I probably had a class every now and then, but I didn't really start seriously consuming the stuff until college.  I mean I appreciated the stuff, but I didn't know a whole lot, it was one of those things I figured I'd pick up when I had a job or something.  Anyway that's not the case now.. I drink as much wine as my parents whenever I'm home, and I'm really trying to get a nose for it.  So I guess I can say I've been really trying to understand the value and complexity of wine for the past two to three years.

Over the past couple of years I've experienced a decent amount of wine culture, from vineyards to tastings to even boxed wine, not one of the better experiences.  I've been fortunate enough to try a number of not only decent, but expensive wines.  And I feel this has given me a lot of perspective on what to appreciate and what to look for in good wine, aka the smoothness, complexity, etc.

That being said, despite the fact that I've always wanted to learn more about wine, I've always put it off.  And like I said I just assumed that it would come to me eventually.  In some cases it has, but mostly I'd say I have a very small palette when it comes to the multitude of flavors despite being exposed to a lot of wine.  So I decided to take this class, Geography of Wine, because I wanted to learn what to look for when tasting wine and to sort of demystify it for myself.  I'm very excited and eager to learn as much as possible.