My Prior Wine Experience

Wine, to me, is something to be savored. From the get go, I've enjoyed wines ranging from wine with family at holidays to wine at a restaurant to me purchasing wine for myself. Throughout the years, my wine intake has increased ultimately to enjoying winery outings once-in-a-while and tasting different wines every other week. Typically, I'm attempting to pair wine with dinner. However, the art of pairing wines with food is often lost on me, but I've learned what I like and what I do not like.

I understood relatively quickly that I like Full-Bodied wine without the distinction of red or white. Light bodied, or in my mind mild wines, do not entice me. This body declaration most likely comes from my attitude toward wine, where I like to focus on the wine I'm drinking, trying to taste the different notes while concurrently appreciating the symphony created. Complexity delights me.

Apart from the body of the wine, I usually like dry wines over sweet wines. I enjoy both crisp, refreshing whites and dry reds. Whereas, I don't enjoy sickeningly sweet wines. There is ambiguity in the range between sweet and dry wines where I cannot specifically state what I like and don't like. Lastly about my tastes, I have recently been introduced to the world of port wine, and they are fantastic! So maybe I do like some sweet wines after all.

Looking onward to this course, I hope to learn how to determine different elements within wine, describe what I'm tasting, taste more great wine, and pair wine with food. I'm very not good at tasting different notes within wine, therefore, I can only communicate in general descriptions of wine. Thus, through this course, I would like to link tasting different notes and learning how to describe the wine in more detail together. Additionally, I'd like to figure out how to buy new wine I will like just by looking at the bottle and the internet. Futile goal, I know, but I can get better at it. Then I'd like to add the layer of pairing food with wine to the list of goals for this course. Fundamental pairings could lead to more intricate wine experiences.

Here's a picture of me: