Wine tasting

My introduction to wine, at least the kind that didn't come in a box, came at 19 years of age when I was a nanny for an east coast family. The mother, a New England blue-blood, delighted in exposing my lack of breeding and my general ignorance of all things sophisticated. She taught me how to properly set a table (knife blades in towards the plate), grimaced when I let her daughter eat olives for a snack (how was I to know they soaked their olives in vodka for martinis), and laughed condescendingly when I put red wine in the fridge. She is the reason I fear exposure socially, and she always kept me on my toes. She jeered at me when I ate pizza with a knife and fork. I thought it was the right thing to do, but I was wrong, again.

The family drank wine with dinner every night. Every night she would offer me a glass, and I would refuse. I felt that as an underage teenager, employed to care for her children, it would be unwise of me to drink (which says nothing of my fierce NyQuil addiction). But Kate thought of wine in a mead hall sort of way; it was just something you drank with your meal. If it has been in her vocabulary, she probably would have called me namby-pamby. So, after a while, I started drinking wine when it was offered. Their table wine was a Rodney Strong Merlot, cause you know their cousin owned the vineyard, and that is what I cut my teeth on. For a while I was comfortable with Merlots. I knew how to pronounce the wine (still reeling from the Syrah/Shiraz incident of 2003), and I could order a bottle that wasn't completely offensive to my party. So, I drank Merlot. I would later learn to describe it as too dry for my taste and would embrace sweeter Rieslings and Gewürztraminers, which I still love. But I have slowly been rediscovering red wines, finally able to do without the fear of Kate looming in the back of my mind.

I love Italian Barberas and Barolos, but I am often too poor to afford these on my own and only drink them when someone else is footing the bill. Pinot Noirs, however, are my favorites to discover right now. I bought a fantastic bottle for Thanksgiving, after reading that they don't have much tannin and, therefore, compliment the meat very well. Since then, I am over the moon for Pinot Noirs. I drank a bottle and a half at my own party, and it was the only wine, of the four I bought, to disappear completely.

All of this was brought on because my boys at work got me a lovely wine carrying case that has a shoulder strap and room for two bottles, and a lovely bottle of Pinot that I can't wait to tear into. Between that and the bottle of Veuve Cliquot in my fridge waiting for New Year's, I look forward to the next week or so. Hail, fermented grapes!