I find that wine, as with many types of alcohol, is an acquired taste. I never drank wine, never liked it, until I moved into our house 20 something years ago and met my neighbor.
Her wine of choice was White Zinfandel…from a box. White Zin is light and very sweet. So I started drinking it and really came to like it so much that I would take a box of wine on vacation with me. My kids called it the wine bladder – as I had to take it out of the box to make it fit in the cooler.
For me, White Zin was a gateway to the harder, more robust stuff.
I didn’t branch out until we started wine tasting on the peninsulas in Michigan – Old Mission and Leelanau. As many times as I have been, Old Mission is still my favorite peninsula.
Some people say Michigan can’t make good wines but it’s like everything else – it’s a matter of personal taste and it depends on the year. Some years everything tastes like dirt.
I loved wine tasting! For $5 per person, you would get 5 tastes of your choice and you would get to keep glass! I have so many cute glasses from wine tasting. Because, for me, the other thing about drinking wine is you have to have the right glass. Who wants to drink wine from an unattractive glass?
As you might have guessed, I am not a wine snob.
My go to wines, now, are Josh Cabernet Sauvignon and Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. Kendall Jackson also makes an unoaked Chardonnay which I find I like better than oaked Chardonnay.
Others to try are:
Hess Select Cabernet Sauvignon
Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon
Josh Chardonnay
Charles Debourges Sancerre
Just a side note: If you do go wine tasting, remember, you don’t have to buy wine from the wineries you visit. And I highly recommend that you don’t buy it, especially if you are on your 5th winery for the day, because everything tastes good. I have bought so much wine and then I get it home and wonder why did I buy this, it tastes like dirt.
– Kelley