A Beginners Guide to Wine

Have you ever been to a restaurant and purchased the wine list and thought to yourself what should I order? You like wine and heck, maybe even love it, but most people's taste in wine are as different as their thoughts. Wine has a certain stigma, it can be tricky to navigate through all those pretty bottles up on those adorable little shelves, so I am putting together a basic guide to help you on your next wine shopping adventure.

1. You don't need to necessarily purchase the most expensive bottle of wine in order to enjoy it. As a matter of fact you should start with the cheapest and crappiest so you know what bad wine tastes like before you can truly appreciate the good ones.

2. Buy a box of wine and sample the red, blush and white, this is a beginners guide and it may be embarrassing but you have to start somewhere.These are the lowest of the low end wines and the worse tasting as well.

3. Consider Mondavi Coastal Vineyards, for your next purchase and again buy a red, white, and blush, then start on the "burgundies" any will do since you will begin to compare tastes then worry about the Merlot as your first go to choice for red.You have to start in your own backyard before you need to start in your own backyard before you can travel the world.

4. Wine is like a trip around the world You should begin with California wines to purchase in the stores and go to as many wine tastings as you can in your local area. This brings me to my next lesson

5. Be sure to learn how to open a bottle of wine. Use cork and synthetic and compare the tastes of the wines. Observe the flavors and ask yourself if it is an "Oak" flavor versus crisp clean flavor with rich notes of "berry" and hopefully "plum" or "peppery" to your wine tasting vocabulary.

6. Be certain to involve friends as wine is a social art and talking about it with friends a great way to learn and describe tastes to each other other. It makes great conversation as well."Experience" is all in the game. The more knowledge you can obtain the better to make comparisons with. Experience is the ideal way you can grow and learn from each other.

7. Schedule a trip to a local winery and send an e-mail to all the friends you wish to go with you. Pay a driver NOT to drink during the wine tasting nor at all( designated driver is a safe and careful driver with no desire to drink wine or any other type of alcohol). Friendships are made and blossom in the wine. More to come from "Eve" on this topic.Finalize the plans and designate picnic items to bring. Nearly all wineries understand the importance of eating certain delicious foods with wines to bring out certain flavors. Again more to come...