My Life Experiences With Wine Thus Far

In my life so far I have not had terribly many experiences with wine and would like to fix that.  So far I have had almost no idea what wines would be good or that I would enjoy.  My family is very big into celebratory drinks and shots of things like Slivovitz and Jägermeister, and my parents drink things like apricot sours and gin-n-tonics.  Therefore wines have been more of a thanksgiving or dinner party type drink in my experience.  However, I have discovered that I really do not care for wines that are dry.  I really only like very sweet wines.  My favorite so far has been Moscatos. 

My first glass of wine I actually enjoyed was my freshman year of college at Virginia Tech when my brother visited me, and I had some Moscato when we went to an Olive Garden for dinner.  Then, for my 21^st birthday my older sister bought me a bottle of Cupcake Moscato, which I really liked. Since then, I have had some wine a few more times, mostly at dinner with my parents.  My absolute favorite wine I’ve yet had though was during the past summer when I went to the Williamsburg Colonial Village for a few days with my Mother, Grandmother and Grandfather.  One night we went to a colonial restaurant called Christiana Campbell's Tavern and I had a white wine called "Dauphine De Guiraud Sauternes, France" which had honeysuckle, as well as apricot, white pear, and floral tones to it.  The wine was very light and crisp, with a very sweet and non-lingering taste.  

I have discovered that in addition to not liking dry wine and only liking very sweet wines, I like wines with very little lingering.  I also prefer wines that have a lot of fruit or floral tones in it.  I particularly enjoy the flavors of pear, peach, strawberries, elderflower, and honeysuckle. Most of the wines I tend to enjoy are therefore white wines, usually Moscatos.  As a matter of fact I have yet to discover a red wine that I did actually like.  

From this class I wish to learn about serving wine and how to properly drink and taste the wine in the hopes that I will enjoy the wine itself more and perhaps enjoy the flavors more.  Additionally, I really hope to learn more about the differences between the types of wines so that I will be better able to select wines that I feel I will enjoy.  By attending the wine tastings I hope to also acquire more of a taste for wine so that I can detect more flavors and be able to get more out of a glass of wine rather than just to say whether its dry or not.  Finally, I want to learn a lot about pairing wines with foods and cheeses so that when making or having special dinners I can select wines that will complement the food and vice-verse.