Learning to Love Wine

Like most people, I had to learn to love wine – it didn’t come naturally, and I really didn’t like it at first. So why take the time trying to learn to like something that you don’t like in the first place? And how did I go from tolerating wine to falling in love with it? Here’s the story of how and why I learned to love wine!

My first three wine journals circa 2000 - 2002

The year was 2000. We had survived “Y2K” and the expected crashing of computer systems, such as those for banking and power plants at the turn of the millennium (didn’t happen!). General Hospital was still America’s favorite soap opera. The dot-com bubble burst, and George Bush was elected as the 43rd President of the United States.  Oh, and I took my first sip of alcohol at the tender age of 38! Blame Laurie for that – she’s the one who’s responsible for encouraging me to drink wine and in the process, ruining almost four decades of hard work by my parents protecting and shielding me from the evils of alcohol! I’ll be forever grateful to her for that!!

I grew up in a bone-dry house. We were all good Southern Baptists, and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in our house, except for the same bottle of cooking wine my mom had in the pantry for 15+ years. That’s just how things were if you grew up in the Bible Belt of America. And since I never drank alcohol, once I was out of the house and on my own, I just didn’t see any need to start. Then, along came Laurie, my saving grace! She encouraged me to join her and some friends at a Virginia wine tasting festival one warm summer day. I tasted a sweet Virginia rose wine, and thought, “this isn’t half bad – tastes like fruit juice with a kick!

Over the course of the afternoon, I sipped a few other wines but didn’t like any of them – they were harsh, bitter, and unpleasant. Still, I was intrigued by that sweet wine I had tasted and enjoyed so much, so I set out to learn a bit more about wine – and that was the start of my long journey learning to love wine.

I didn’t really have a plan at first – I just knew I wanted to educate myself about wine – how it’s produced, the different styles available, and whether there were other wines I might like beside sweet roses (a.k.a., white Zinfandels!). My first step was to read more about wine, so I bought a few wine books and started digging in. The first book I read was Windows on the World Complete Wine Course by Kevin Zraly, one of the all-time classic introductions to wine. I couldn’t put it down – everything about the book was fascinating to me, but especially the descriptions of the different grape varieties and their individual flavor profiles. I discovered that there were other wines – white wines like Chardonnay, and red wines like Zinfandel – that were made in a fruit-forward style that would likely appeal to my palate. And I took Zraly’s advice to heart – to really learn about wine, you have to drink it and not just read about it. Sounded like a good idea to me and something I could really get behind!

So, I started buying wine to taste. I’ll confess I had no earthly idea what I was doing – all I did know was that I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I would probably like Chardonnay more than any other variety based on its flavor profile, and that it would also be good to expand the aperture beyond just Chardonnay so I could learn about other wines as well. I also thought it would be a good idea to take notes as I embarked on this new journey so I could keep track of what I liked and didn’t like, so I started my first wine journal to record my observations about each wine I tasted. In addition to writing about the wines themselves (which ones I liked and didn’t like and why, the different flavor characteristics of each, and how I rated them for quality), I also wrote about what we were doing or what was happening in our lives as we drank these wines, and what we ate while drinking them.

My first wine journal covered a year of tasting wine and had 135 entries, which means I was opening a bit less than 3 bottles a week – a pretty good pace for a guy who didn’t really know much about wine and didn’t really love it either! About half of those wines were Chardonnays, because those were the wines I liked the best – they were fruity (which for me, translated into sweeter wines even though they were really dry and had no residual sugar). They were also richer wines and incredibly flavorful. The rest were mostly red wines, because I was really trying to learn and understand why these wines were so popular. The more I drank them, the more I came to appreciate the unique characteristics of red wines and how varied and different they were from variety to variety. Also, I was staying close to home – 75 percent of the wines I drank that first year were American wines, with Italian wines running a distant second.

My second wine journal covered about eight months and included 100 entries during 2001-2002. A quick look through the summary of wines I tasted shows that I really branched out by sampling more wines from across the world, but also more varieties of wines as well. Chardonnays represented only 20% of the wines I drank, and 2/3 of those wines were red wines instead of white wines. Also, about half were from the U.S., with wines from France and Italy coming in second and third place. Zinfandel was my variety of choice as well – I drank 26 bottles of that variety, followed by 20 bottles of Chardonnay as the second-place winner.

I also started learning about food and wine pairings, and how to pick wines that would go with different dishes. One of the books I got back then, What to Drink with What You Eat by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, was a game-changer for me and I still get it out at least once a month to help me pair wines with different dishes I’m making in the kitchen. Once I started to really understand the relationship between food and wine, and how they are much more together than the sum of their parts, it was game on, and I couldn’t get enough!

Wine, food, and my Kindle – a perfect day at Greenhill Vineyards in Virginia wine country in 2019

I took a few wine courses offered by some local wine shops, as well as by the Smithsonian and wine appreciation societies in the area. Those were great learning experiences as well and provided the opportunity to interact with and ask questions of some really talented and knowledgeable wine experts. I also made friends with the local wine store owners, who were a great source of information for wine recommendations. After two years, I felt comfortable talking about wine and providing food & wine pairing recommendations to friends and family.

I’m now almost done with my 13th wine journal and plan to continue capturing my wine journey in pictures and words – it has been an incredibly fun and effective way to record and reflect on what I’ve learned about wines over the past decades, as well as the occasions when Laurie and I enjoyed those wines. From the eerie quiet sipping a wine out on our deck on the afternoon of 9/11 when all aircraft were grounded after the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were hit, to our annual anniversary trips to the Chesapeake Bay and St. Michaels, MD staying at the Inn at Perry Cabin, to our frequent visits to our mecca Napa Valley to taste our way through the wineries there, to sad days like opening a special bottle to toast the passing of our beloved greyhound Lincoln (the best dog EVER!), to celebratory days like my final day at work and first day of retirement.  All of them are captured in my journals and I plan to continue to do so as Laurie and I live life to the fullest in retirement!

What has your wine journey looked like, and how have you approached learning about wine? I’d love to hear about your own experiences so let me know! 

My 13 wine journals (well, 13 and counting!)