Wine Baby!

Hello wine world! I am so excited about this class because my experience with wine so far has been very limited. I have tried a few different types but mainly I stick with what I know I like because I feel like I don’t know how to branch out. As a typical “beginner” wine drinker I like the sweet and semi-sweet white wines, as well as some of the semi-sweet reds. I naturally gravitate towards a moscato, a rose wine, or a chardonnay. I haven’t gotten into the dry reds but I’m trusting Professor Boyer is right when he said once we start tasting a lot of wines we’ll grow to like those reds!

I have been able to try a few different wines and learn a little about the wine making process. I visited two local vineyards, King Family Vineyards and Chateau Morrisette, and did wine tastings there. I was also able to take a tour of King Family Vineyards in which they showed us how they make their different wines. They explained why grapes were planted there in the first place. Funny story, it was a Virginia Tech student who came to the King family and asked them if they wanted to sub-divide their farm land because he had a theory that since they were growing peaches there, grapes would also be prosperous there. The family thanked him for his time and said they weren’t interested, but six months later they were planting wine grapes on their land. Our guide explained the growing seasons and how long they allow each of their wines to ferment in order to achieve the taste. They even have an interesting concrete egg which makes the wine stronger because while the wine is fermenting in the egg, the excess vapors and water can “leak” out.

I hope that by the end of the class I will feel comfortable walking into a wine store and buying a bottle of wine I haven’t tried before; while trusting that I will like it. I also want to be knowledgeable about international wine commerce and why certain regions have certain wines. As a political science major I was really interested in what Professor Boyer was talking about in class, concerning new laws which restrict purchasing wines from out-of-state.