My (Prior) Experience With Wine

My experience with wine is very limited.   In fact, I haven’t had wine at all since I turned 21.  The only time I had wine was when I was young, around the ages of 3 and 4.  In my childhood, I would try my parents’ wine (they love wine, and have it most nights with dinner), and even then I would only have a sip.  Now, as a person of legal age, I am able to start my own collection of wine.  However, due to certain health issues I am unable to drink large amounts of alcohol, so I don’t regularly drink or purchase wine.   I do like the smell of some red wine, however, because it reminds me of my childhood.

Because I do not regularly drink wine, my knowledge of wine is limited. I do know that there are various ways to open a wine bottle (as in there are different models of wine openers), and in my experience a common opener involves a cork screw (obviously to open bottles with corks).  In my high school Latin class, I learned that the Romans used to store wine in amphoras (wine jars). There are different devices and containers used to purify or enhance the wine drinking process once the consumer has purchased the wine.  I’m referring particularly to decanters and aerators.  It is my understanding that decanters help to remove some of the sediment from wine, and both decanters and aerators are used to aerate wine.  I learned that aerators work using common principles of fluid mechanics, namely the law of continuity and Bernoulli’s equation.  I also have come to understand that Australia is a country that produces and exports popular and high quality wine.

In my experience, common words to describe wine include “dry”, “sweet”, “grassy”, or “fruity”. However, I understand that there are a plethora of other words to describe wine.  I hope in this class to experience or learn about different wines, so that I can increase not only my awareness about them, but also my ability to describe their taste (using other words than those mentioned above).  I hope to learn about the different wine regions around the world.  I also hope to learn how both different processes of growing grapes and producing wine affect wine’s taste.  By the end of class, I want to be able to talk about wine with my parents and other wine drinkers and add something of value to the conversation.  I want to be able to know what kind of wine to bring to someone’s house for dinner, and I want to be able to recommend wine to try for those friends who say they don’t like wine.  Above all, I want to learn how to appreciate what is widely regarded as high culture- that is, drinking wine.

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