This site kinda got me thinking....I started off by saying I realy don't know much about wine, and I am learning, which is true. I have actually learned a lot here in this short time.

BUT then it made me think back and I realized wine and I really do go back a long way. One of my first introductions to it was as a child visiting 2 of my old spinster aunts in Germany, who loved to take Day Cruises along the Rhine River. They didn't have any children, so they liked to take my brother and I along. I know they'd give us sips now and then (age 10ish). I wasn't really interested, back then, but I know they would also purchase wine and would save it for special occasions...always making a big deal about it..."we're going to drink a wine from the celler tonight" they'd seem to announce...then the other sister would have to get her keys and go down the flights of stairs to the cellar and pull up something hopefully the other sister, who was much more particular and critical would approve of.

Anyways those are some of my first memories of wine and where I presume my seed of interest first started.

I don't know wether it was the serving temperature (I had the restaurant stick it in the fridge for 20 minutes this time around, rather than have it at room temperature), or my state of mind at the time..

But the one wine that got me wanting to get serious about wines (May of this year, in fact) wasn't as chewy and full-bodied as I remembered it when I had it again a few months later (same restaurant, same meal)..

It was still good.. But it just goes to show absence makes the heart grow fonder.

And you should always take notes, and try a whole spectrum of wines, to give you a basis of comparison..

It's funny.. I don't know why THAT particular wine should have set me off, after all my Christmases of this white wine or that, all the anniveraries and New Year's with the perfunctory sparkling wine..

But it did..

My first memory of wine is very clear. I'd be about 5 years old.
My parents took me camping in France; I think it was in the Loire valley.
One day they decided to visit a winery, and in the barrel room I went around and finished off all the samples that I could find.

On the same trip we visited some great cathedral. According to my mum I saw all the candles and started singing "Happy birthday to you" at the top of my voice.

hahahahaha,
that is one funny story!

Nice stories. I am getting kind of sentimental just thinking of mine...

but then of course the Old Boones Farm Strawberry Hill Memories came back to me...chuggin' cheap wine, ditchin' class, pretending I was "drunk" on the first sip...

Underage drinking of copious quantities of Boones Farm (from the bottle as if that mattered) on the shores of the St. Clair River in Port Huron, Michigan before going to see a Rush concert (1976). How's that for sentimental? Or maybe just mental.

My family spent 2 weeks touring Europe in '98. Every nite when we went to our pre-arranged dinner with our tour group there would be a carafe of white and 1 of red on the table. It was always the house wine but it always tasted so good.

I bought quite a lot of "Alte Weintradition" ("Wine-based alcoholic beverage" - don't ask!) when I was younger…even then I realised that stuff was crap, but hey; it was cheap!
However, the first “real” wine I bought were two bottles of Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin Red Burgundy, I think in 1993 (so I would assume either the ’91 or ’92 vintage): RonnieRoots and myself were part of the drama club of our high school. The lead character of the play we were performing that year would cry out for Burgundy whenever she got stressed. As such, we bought these two bottles as a thank-you gift for the directors of the play.
Funny enough, the parents of the girl who played the Burgundy lover also poured us the first wine I knew was really, REALLY special: Lafite Rothschild 1985…

Underage, but dressed up
Blue Nun with my much older boyfriend at
Bennigan's in Johnson City, TN

(keep in mind the drinking age was 18 back then.)

I can see it like it was yesterday. I thought I was hot she-ite.

I can't remember

quote:

Originally posted by Tastebuddy:
Underage, but dressed up

...yeah I remeber those days...riding the subway in Berlin, Germany...16 was legal

I can see it like it was yesterday. I thought I was hot she-ite.

Weren't we? Aren't we still? (hot she-ite, that is)


Deryl, Why can't you remember?

Cold Duck.

quote:

Originally posted by Walt:
Cold Duck.

That's what lead to my first hangover at 15.

However my first wine experience I was much younger, sneaking whatever my parents were serving during a Christmas or New Years party in the 60's. They were not really into wine, so it was probably some crappy jug wine like Almaden or Gallo. All I remember was a sour, vinegarish taste. It's a wonder I enjoy wine now.

MD 20/20 at 15 year old. Vomiting all over my
friends bathroom floor.

My first wines were all fruit wines, served on holidays and with Sunday dinners at the grandparents' house. It's not my fault they were German. Nasty, nasty stuff. I don't like fruit wines to this day. Next came the 4 bottles of cheap champagne that my uncle Terry gave me for Christmas (when no one was looking) at age 14. I hid them in a snowbank to keep them cold and then drank them with friends during halftime of a football game. Thank goodness these family moments didn't influence my drinking habits today.

Throwing up due to a californian Merlot.

My grandparents sold their farm in northern Alberta and bought a home in Oliver B.C. from a pioneer Portugese couple. When my grandmother passed away we had a gathering at their home after the funeral,I was 14 at the time. We, we being my 3 older cousins plus 2 uncles found 3 kegs of homemade wine in the celler of the house.I to this day do not know if my granddad knew what was in those casks,but it was wonderful and potent.We toasted our grandmother many times and I must admit it did help kill the pain I felt that daY! I still have a soft spot in my heart for homemade wine and the Portugese culture in the South Okanagan.

I remember it well because it was a night of firsts. I was 16. She was 16 and drop dead gorgeous. We went to a city festival (Chaumont, France), drank wine and danced. Afterwards we skinny dipped in a canal. (We had to be drunk to swim in a french canal.) I've had a burning passion ever since...for wine.

Lady: I dated a girl in Germany. Her family later moved to southern Calif. Her family name was Dunn. (Not the wine.) Sandy, is that you?

I have two memories:
My first glass of wine was in Italy it was homemade red by my uncle and I was 11 yrs old. I had two glasses and I remember stumbling down the street back to my granparents house. My second one was drinking a glass of 95' Turley Hayne Vineyard zinfandel that totally blew me away!!!. It was that turley that started my passion for wine!!!.

Always having wine at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Usually some sort of German wine. I'm sure the wines were never anything to speak of but it was always something I looked forward to since I typically didn't drink any sort of alcohol the rest of the year (except for an occasional sip of my dad's beer).

quote:

Originally posted by slapshot:
I remember it well because it was a night of firsts. I was 16. She was 16 and drop dead gorgeous. We went to a city festival (Chaumont, France), drank wine and danced. Afterwards we skinny dipped in a canal. (We had to be drunk to swim in a french canal.) I've had a burning passion ever since...for wine.

..I vaguely remember skinny dipping in a French Canal...

by slapshot..
""""Lady: I dated a girl in Germany. Her family later moved to southern Calif. Her family name was Dunn. (Not the wine.) Sandy, is that you?""""

Francois? Could it be you?

You are definitely not the lady I was skinny dipping with. She would remember that night! It was a night of firsts for her too. We still say hello at class reunions - at least once every year. She still is a beautiful lady!

But if that's you Sandy...I still love you. I got scars from fights, from football games (three touchdowns in one game), from hockey, even got stabbed once, but the biggest scar ever is the one my heart got when you broke it. I loved you!

No Slapshot, sorry to disappoint you...I am not your Sandy.

...the rest was just a joke, thought you might play along