In 2005, my husband, my 7 month old daughter and I drove from Michigan to Seattle. We took the long way, stopping in Phoenix and then on to California. I had never been to California even though my family had traveled extensively when I was a child. I have been to something like 40 of the 50 states. California was just too far as a child of two teachers from Indiana, so it escaped our travels. The summer of 2005 was my first ahh-ha moment with wine. Our first stop in California was Santa Barbra and I will forever hold a place in my heart for that beautiful town. It was ridiculously romantic, my beautiful husband, by baby that I was totally in love with, our tiny little family was on our first adventure.
The hotel in Santa Barbra had a special "Sideways" package. We had seen the movie and of course, loved it. You didn't have to be a wine lover to like the movie, you just had to love Paul Giamati and how could you not love him? He was fascinating in and enthralling as a man on the edge, who was, of course, reeled back into reality by the perfect woman. With our "Sideways package" we got a map to the wineries in the area. We took off in the morning with a vague idea of where we were going and ran into a ton of beautiful wineries. It was eye opening. It was nirvana. It was the beginning.
The bucolic experience, the purity of the day, having my fledgling family there...it all added up to one of the best days of my life, one that could never be recreated or touched.
Zaca Mesa winery was one of our stops that day and it was the first time a wine made me sit up and take notice. It was an epiphany from which I would happily never recover. A year later we called Zaca Mesa to have some wine shipped to us. On our painfully small stipend (My husband was a grad. student and I was busy raising our daughter)we still begged them for the last two bottles of the wine that we loved. Shockingly, they couldn't ship it to us in Michigan (it was illegal at the time) so we had to have it shipped to my in laws in Chicago.
Since that summer and that particular drive across the country, I have been in love with wine. In lust might be a better description. Wine is a beautiful thing and I have enjoyed learning as much about it as I can. I have traveled to taste it, I have read books about it, I try and drink it as much as I can (of course- it's all in the name of research yes?).
So now what? I have found that one of the best ways for me to find out more about a subject is to experience it, but not only that, to read and write about it only enhances my learning. So here I go, you are welcome to join me. I know virtually nothing but I will be learning along the way and I will share what I find out.
So why should you trust me? You shouldn't really. I already told you I know pretty much next to nothing, but I will be learning and I might have something interesting to say along the way. So join me, and we'll drink, and do what we can to learn together.
-Laura
7/3/04
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