Wine was never a large part of my life growing up. Living in a household with strict parents, alcohol was not permitted under 21, excuse the occasional sip of my father's wine at Thanksgiving dinner. I remember my thoughts immediately turned to how gross it was, and my dad would just say how that was good, because I wasn't supposed to be drinking it anyway. So I would return back to the kid's table, sip my sparkling grape juice, and wash the taste of wine out of my mouth.
My wine drinking prowess in college and since turning 21, 18 months ago, has hardly improved since the days of those little sips on the holidays, but recently my willingness to try different wines has been trending upwards. Beer has always been my alcoholic beverage of choice, whether I was sipping on a Sierra Nevada IPA after dinner at home, or having more than a few Natural Lights on a weekend night in Blacksburg. After I turned 21, I followed lightly in the footsteps of my cousin, who fancies himself somewhat of a beer connoisseur. He would record all the different beers he had tried in an Excel spread sheet, making notes on what he liked or didn't like about them, and I followed in his footsteps doing the same, although much less enthusiastically. But never before had I much of an interest in doing the same for wine.
Recently though, I have come to acquire a taste for the beverage, which is probably attributable to the stigma that wine has as a classier alcoholic beverage. Drinking a brown ale at Christmas dinner wasn't acceptable, but drinking a glass of Chardonnay was, so slowly my appreciation grew. My experience is still very limited though, mostly ranging from Franzia to Barefoot with a few more medium priced wines mixed in. But I look forward to expanding my range and knowledge of wines this semester.