Barnes & Nobel and Borders book stores have become my destination of choice for books to learn more about buying, tasting and producing good wine. I want to know everything I can about wine. I have immersed myself in studying and taking notes on wine facts and characteristics. I did not study this diligently in college! My wife thought at first that I was “cracking up”! I loved it and still do. What an amazing science, that of producing great wine!

The more new wines I tried, the more I wanted to read about them, find out how they were made, where they came from and what to look for in the new ones to try. A few years ago I bought a copy of the “Wine Spectator” and was immediately taken in by it. There was so much information for a novice like me that I was able to finally slice, dice and analyze it for hours on end. I was particularly “smitten” by the 100 point wine rating scale. I soon found that almost all the rated wines were not available in the local grocery stores where I had been buying my wine. I figured most of them to be out of reach and not available in our area being from California, Washington and Oregon and were simply out of the question for me to buy and try.

It was truly amazing! We actually found a vintage of cabernet that we really liked from a California winery. My wife even said, “Why don’t you go get several bottles just to have on hand?” Wow! That was so out of character for her that I could hardly believe it! I dutifully trekked off to the grocery store to buy a case of wine. I went directly to the section and shelf where I’d bought that “really great wine” last week and it was GONE! What the heck?

My wife and I were invited to a recently acquainted friend’s home near us on the beach. She is a well-to-do realtor and the evening promised to be fun and interesting. She offered us a glass of wine and in tandem, we responded, “A glass of white wine, please.” I soon learned that this person was way beyond opinionated and replied, “All white wine tastes like crap! I only drink cabernet – you’ll love it!” (Yeah right!) I watched as she took it out of the rack, popped the cork out and poured three glasses (balloons, of course) of warm red wine. This was going to be horrible but, remember, you’re a guest so shut up, sip it slowly and don’t pucker or comment.

In the year 2000, my job moved us to Fort Myers Beach, Florida and for once in our life the closest McDonald’s was not a 30 mile trip to the nearest “big town”. Shopping was amazing and even the basic necessities were at our fingertips. The grocery stores are huge and have everything you need and a lot that you don’t! Among the completely stocked shelves we found a complete isle, 200’ long, full of wine! Holy Crap! We not only couldn’t figure out what it all was, but we couldn’t begin to pronounce most of the names.

Giving up the hunt for a red wine that we liked in the early 80’s was an easy thing to do. At a bar or restaurant the request for a glass of white wine was still the cool way to go as an alternative to hard liquor or beer, and it was easy to drink.

It seems like my wife and I were (are) always on a diet of some sort. Fighting weight is a fulltime job for us. I hark back to one of the first articles that we read; put out by the diet folks we were following, that alluded to the fact that “red wine” was possibly really good for you! What a revelation. But I don’t like red wine, like that communion stuff from my youth!

Growing up in a beer drinking culture, drinking meant “COLD” beer. We heard stories of the ‘old country’ where all the beer was consumed warm and we all agreed that we were glad to live in the modern world of refrigerators and ice chests. Living in rural Iowa in the late 70’s and early 80’s and you wanted a cool temperature wine to drink you ordered “a glass of white wine” or if your really wanted to sound worldly, a glass of Chablis.

Most old German families in our rural Iowa community made their own wine. Not much, but some each summer and not necessarily out of grapes. What ever was in the current batch was in a 5 gallon “Red Wing” crock, sitting on the kitchen counter, covered with a thin dish towel with little fruit lies hovering over it day and night. Who would ever drink this stuff that bugs liked that much? I was truly clueless at age 9.

I don’t completely remember when the Iowa Liquor Control Commission (ILCC) actually allowed humans to not only “see” the bottles at the state stores before they made a selection on what type of alcohol to buy, but at some point in time they actually allowed the public to walk in and pick up (touch) the individual bottles, put them into a cart and just pay for them without filling out the liquor book. They had finally moved out of prohibition forever!