Unless you come from old money and your family enjoyed fine Bordeaux with dinner, the first wines you drank were probably pretty basic. Back in the day (won’t mention how many) my husband and I drank Almaden Chablis and splurged on $5 bottles of Lancer’s Rose. There was also a line of wines from Yugoslavia called Premiat that sold for around $2. We thought we were terribly sophisticated at the time.
Our taste buds have certainly moved beyond those wines, but it was not simply the advancing years that did it. Simply put – WE DEVELOPED A TASTE FOR WINE BY TASTING WINES.
The first thing you should do if you want to flex your wine muscles is find the very best wine shop you can. The next step is to make friends with the staff member that knows the most about the inventory. He or she will not look down on you or sneer. They want to educate you on wine – they want to sell you wine – they want to sell you lots of wine. It is simple economics.
Here is the strategy we used. One night each weekend we would have an “in house” date. For the occasion, I would try a new recipe. I would discuss this recipe with my buddy Adam at the wine store and buy his recommendation. The next week I would go see Adam again. First we discussed last week’s selection and what we liked and didn’t like before moving on to the current week. Over time Adam knew our palate better than we did, and there was seldom a miss. This is no different than the personal shopper at Nordstroms.
So take a tip from the Wine Witch – develop your own program to flex your wine muscles. Go out and experiment. The worst that can happen is that you eliminate a particular wine from your repertoire. No problem – makes room for another.
Cheers!
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