Personal Wine Experience Up Until This Class

I remember my first time trying wine like it was yesterday.  It all started with a group of friends early in my college career talking about how they like to try different new wines.  So, one guy invited us to his apartment to try all the wines he had opened.  Luckily for me he knew a lot about wine and my taste pallet.  He knew that I like basically anything with sugar, so he started me off on dessert wines and white wines.  I felt like a whole new world had opened up, and that I was never turning back.  I think the main reason I thoroughly enjoyed the experience was it taught me that wine is good, and I felt very comfortable in the social setting the whole time I was trying different wines.  I was with a group of friends talking, listening to music, and watching movies.  I went home feeling "happy," but having no regrets in the morning.  Later in the semester I went back to his apartment to hang out with friends again.  This time he had just discovered the taste of dessert wine poured over vanilla ice cream.  He gave it to us to try and let him know our opinions.  All of us wanted seconds. It was delicious!  After that experience I decided that dessert wine is my favorite and definitely poured over ice cream.

Another experience with wine that stands out was when the Inn at Virginia Tech needed 100 volunteers to help with a banquet.  I thought to myself this would be a great way to earn some extra cash and experience something new.  When I was a waitress they expected me to know how to say the names of the wines and how to pour them for the guests.  It took me 10 minutes to just make sure I got the pronunciation of the two wines correct so I did not mess it up and feel dumb.  Then later, I learned that the red wine goes in the larger mouth glass and the white wine goes in the smaller mouth glass.  The red wine has to go in the larger glass so it can breath.  After that experience I decided I needed to take this class so I can learn more about wine and not feel dumb.

In this class I would like to learn EVERYTHING there is to know about wine.  I would like to feel cultured when people bring up the topic of wine and not ignorant.  I would mainly like to focus on learning the different vocabulary associated with wine, and how to pronounce the names of different types of wine.  Also, I would like to learn how to partner wine with different meals, just like the way my friend partnered dessert wine with ice cream.  If the topic is wine, my ears are open.