Now that I’m officially out of school and into the real world, I feel like I am finally able to start focusing my time on things that I enjoy. Well.. aside from the 40+ hours spent at work each week. But let’s be honest, some people work 80 hours a week.. I am lucky.

With all this extra time on my hands (what, you mean I don’t have homework or something to study for?! amazing), I’ve been doing more of my two favorite things in life: cooking and drinking wine. You thought for a second I was going to say working out, didn’t you? Hah, no. No no. Walking up and down the aisle of the grocery store is where I get my cardio.

I’ve been trying so many new recipes. But as much as I want to talk about the food, I want to talk about the wine even more. With my newly acquired disposable income, I’ve felt it only right to spend a little more money on the wines I buy. And I don’t mean by much. Hellooooo, I’ve lived off of $6 bottles of Barefoot Pinot Grigio for the past 4 years, I’ve only upped my budget now to the $10-20/bottle range.

One of my top picks in this price range is Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. Fruity and fragrant, but definitely not sweet - I’m a dry-wine kinda girl and this has the perfect balance for my taste. I treated myself to this on Friday after seeing my first paycheck deposited to my bank account.. but then on Saturday I thought, “Hey, I need more wine, let’s go spend the afternoon at my favorite place”!

If you don’t live in a state touching an ocean, you probably (unfortunately) have never heard of Total Wine. For some reason they are only located in coastal states. Anyway, it’s a wine superstore. Yes, you read that right, a superstore… for wine.

I don’t even know how to describe this place except for calling it heaven-on-earth. There are aisles and aisles of wine. They are separated mostly by grape-type (Merlot, Chardonnay, etc) but they also have aisles by region (Spain, Italy, etc). Not only that but they have a large selection of craft beers (they have my beloved Founder’s beer from Michigan!), and all types of liquor - carrying options that your average store would never have in stock. They also have classes throughout the month, but my favorite part about this place? - every Friday, Saturday and Sunday they have free tastings from noon to 6pm.

Naturally, upon getting there yesterday, my first stop was the tasting counter. They had several wines out, a good red Zinfandel that I snatched a bottle of, and a tiny-bubble-style Prosecco that I ended up grabbing too.

After getting a little taste of the good stuff, I walked up to one of the store clerks and said “I want to buy some new wines, can you show me some of your favorites for around $15/bottle?”. I’ve never had an employee at this place steer me wrong, and this guy was no different - I swear he could read my mind. He walked me around the store and filled my cart with several new bottles of wine - all of which he questioned me about to make sure I’d like the style. Um Hi can I have your card? Thanks.

Rather than just going home, drinking all of the bottles and saying “yea I like this” or “no I don’t like this”, I wanted to go at this new case of wine (yes, a case) with a more, well, nerdy approach. So I stopped by Barnes and Noble to find a book on wine.

You know those “___ for Dummies” books? Yea well I picked up Wine for Dummies and so far I actually LOVE reading it; it’s surprisingly well-written. Some of it I already knew since I’ve got a good bit of wine-drinking under my belt, but I’m learning a lot about how to determine taste, body, aroma, etc. Also about regions of wine and how climate affects the grapes.

I sipped on The Velvet Devil Merlot from Washington yesterday while reading and had so much fun looking at it in a different light. Some Merlots I like more than others, and I really loved this one and was able to pinpoint what exactly it was that I liked about it. Plumy, tart and dry but also very smooth. I think I need to start a wine notebook and keep tabs on all the new ones I try. Calling all wine-snobs, is this where I pass the initiation test?

 

Either way, I always knew wine was something I enjoyed and now I’m excited about how much of a hobby it has the potential to be. So, if you’re ever in the area and want to go for a glass of wine, or hell, have a wine-Skype-date (Becky??), I’m obviously down for that.

 

 

Do you like wine?

If so, on a scale of 1-10 how much of a wine snob/nerd are you?