Hello! My name is Joseph Annibell and I am a senior at Virginia Tech majoring in National Security and Foreign Affairs. To be honest, I do not have a lot of experience with wine as I have normally been predominantly into liquor and other spirits. I have only had wine a few times in my life. When I have had wine in my life, for the most part, it has been white wine, and I really haven't tried much red wine. With white wine, I typically like the wine to be a little bit more on the drier side, but if there is another option, I would take a sweeter white wine. I have had a few nicer wines since some of my friends work at various wineries back home.
One wine that I tried recently (New Year’s Eve), which I don’t even remember the name of, was one of the first few red wines that I have tasted in my life. Like I said before, I have not had many red wines before, but I really enjoyed trying this specific one; my one friend who works at a winery called the Bull Run Winery in Northern Virginia, recommended this pricey wine for me to try at his house since he was able to bring some bottles of wine home with him. It was a bottle of red wine on the sweeter side but still had hints of dryness, which was the best combination I could have asked for. I was surprised that my friend picked this specific wine without knowing my wine preferences. It made me want to experiment with more types of red wine than just solely having white wine.
Now I am not into super sweet wines because they overwhelm my personal palette too much, which is why I am more into semi-sweet and drier bottles of wine. There are a lot of things that I have learned from the course already about wine knowledge, but I still feel like I have so much more to learn before I feel comfortable enough trying wine whether it be by myself at my home, at a winery, at a tasting at a wine store, etc. I have had boxed wines at Virginia Tech before and have only ever bought one bottle of wine that was actually pretty good (it was a pineapple-flavored wine). What I want to know is what is a good starter bottle of white wine and what is a good starter bottle of red wine? Once I try these, I feel like I can expand into trying and experimenting with more types of wine. Also, what are some good fortified wines and blended wines? I am curious to try these because I have never had them before. I can’t wait to learn more about wine and will keep you posted on my journey for the foreseeable future.
