Let’s get things straight, I’m not much of a wine drinker. To be honest, I’m not much of an alcohol drinker in general, and when I do drink, wine is not my first option. My name is Aidan McCarthy, and I am currently a senior at Virginia Tech Majoring in wildlife conservation. So, I don’t drink a lot of wine and my major has absolutely nothing to do with wine, so why have I decided to take a class and blog about wine in the first place? I’m not completely sure myself, but something about learning about the process of tasting wine and how it varies from region to region really intrigues me. Regarding my major, wildlife conservation, one of my favorite activities is to see how the same species varies from region to region either my looks or by behavior. Tasting and comparing different types of wines reminds me of this, and I think that this exploration of wines differences across regions is what drew me into this course in the first places.

              Believe it or not, wine was my first experience with alcohol, and it happened during a massive thunderstorm in Costa Rica of all places. While on a trip with my grandparents to Costa Rica, we decided to stop at a random Italian restaurant at the end of all alleyway during a massive storm. We had been visiting Costa Rica during the “down-season” where there is minimum tourism in the country, so the own was very excited for us to be visiting and offered us all a free glass of wine with our dinner. Did I enjoy the wine, to be completely honest not really, but that experience has stayed with me years after. Since then, I have tried wine now and again, but I have literally no idea what kind of wine I’ve tasted nor what my tastes in wine currently are. That is one thing that I hope to learn in this class. I want to be able to go into a restaurant and know both what kind of wine is which but also which types of wine I actually enjoy. Have I found a type of wine that I really enjoy so far? Nope. But I hope this class will help change that this semester.

              What I look forward to this semester is taking a night to sit down with my friends who are in this class and experience new types of wine together. Most of my roommates are currently in this course and none of us have any experience with drinking wine. I look forward to learning about wine together and I’m sure this class will result in some great memories.  Almost all of my experiences with drinking wine in the past have been with family at events, so I associate drinking wine with family and friends. I believe this class may expand upon this; however, by the end I may have learned something about what I’m drinking.

              To semester of wining and dining. Cheers!

-          Aidan