Wine and Dine, Refined

Wine has been a part of my life since childhood, when my parents would slip me sips of Merlot and Chardonnay at the dinner table. Though I found the taste sharp and often unpleasant (we were far from being connoisseurs of Romanée-Conti), the opportunity to drink an "adult beverage" filled me with pride and closeness to my parents. Plus, sappy romantic comedies like A Good Year showed me that wine had the power to unlock the doors of love. What a great enabler! Since then, wine has always held a special place in my heart.

As I got older, the art of wine tasting in college and through movies like Sideways ensnared me under its mystical spell. The sommeliers were modern-day wizards, somehow pulling the hints of raspberry jam and cinnamon from a single sniff-sip-swirl-and-spit and immediately knowing which obscure French cheese would make the best pairing. My palate (which for an embarrassingly long time, I thought was pronounced "pa-lay") seemed so unrefined and uneducated next to theirs. One glass of Cabernet Sauvignon seemed just as good as the next (as a middle-class college student living in Texas). Ultimately, I decided that it was a lost cause, and I would forever be dependent on the opinions of "wine experts" for "what to drink when and why."

Then I entered investment banking, and the head of my group was, to say the least, a wine enthusiast (he owned half a vineyard in France). He introduced me to my first glass of luxury Pinot Noir (>$100/bottle) and turned my wine world on its head. I'd never tasted a wine so smooth and flavorful, and though I still didn't have names for the flavors, that glass of red, along with my years as an investment banker, reignited my curiosity about wine tasting and the industry at large.

This class represents the next phase of my wine exploration. Reading about the creation process and tasting tips in "Around the World in 80 Sips" is like encountering and deciphering a Rosetta Stone for the language of wine. Wine represents the delicious intersection of science, art and business, and I want to explore all of these facets: how different vineyards establish their competitive advantages (even, or especially, the discount wines of my youth); how winemakers interact with different stakeholders, from the government to critics to end consumers; how 21st century innovations and trends are going to transform the wine industry. I am so excited to get a taste of it all (in addition to some fantastic wines each class 😀) with the goal of stepping ever closer to those "wine wizards" I so admire.