Granted, my experience in tasting different wines has been limited. Occasionally, I would experiment at a wedding or a work event where they provided some kind of house wine. My first actual wine tasting as an adult without parent supervision was when the Handyman and I were in Hawaii on our honeymoon (many moons ago). We participated in a wine tasting at one of the wineries on Maui. Very delightful experience and we bought a case of pineapple wine that was shipped back to our house.
Once the pineapple wine was gone, I was interested in finding wine that would be available locally. In my attempt to be open minded, I would try wine at different venues, but I was never able to attach to any wine that didn't give me a headache.
Not until the Handyman and I went to Spain did I discover wines that didn't give me a headache. European wines appeared to be a safe zone for me. My hope was reestablished. After returning from Spain, I was energized to find wines that agreed with me. Ironically, a trend surfaced with in-home wine tasting parties in my local area. Of course, I took advantage of these events to expand my reach to different wines that I might be able to enjoy. The cool thing about these parties is that they give you access to many European wines. Now we could look at this as a catch 22 situation. Good wine cost more $$. Bad wine gives me headaches. Give or take. Though I've learned a lot, I am not a wine connoisseur by no means. I'm just a growing expert in what I like and what I don't like. And it's been fun trying different wines. I will fully admit I like semi-sweet to sweet wines. Most of the cool wine drinkers like the dry wines. Dry is not for me so I'll never be able to hang with the cool kids, but that's never been a priority for me as you know.
The downside to all this is that I've become a wine snob because I won't just drink any kind of wine now. I prefer not to have headaches after one glass of wine and my wallet is lighter these days.
All in all, I've enjoyed the journey to identify good wines that I can drink. Happy exploring.
