Introduction

Hi! I'm Dasha (the one taking the selfie) and I'm really excited to take this class and start learning about wine.

A little about my previous experiences with wine:

Up to this point in my life, I've drank a lot of wine, but most of it has been pretty cheap and I never took the care to think about the flavors I was drinking. I drink wine most commonly when I'm relaxing with my friends, and occasionally while at a restaurant. I probably have 3-4 glasses a week on average. Most of my wine experience has been from low price brands, with a handful of glasses of fancier stuff.

I'm definitely not a fan of most sweet wines I've tried, like moscato, rose, or sangria. I'm hoping that through this course I might open my pallet to these a little, as my distaste is probably from drinking overly sugary low quality brands. I want to find out which notes about these types I enjoy and which ones I should veer away from. On the contrary, I definitely enjoy red wines the most, especially cabernet sauvignon and merlot. I usually pick out a bottle just from seeing those words on the label, so I'm looking forward to being able to distinguish which bottles are tastier to me based on year, location, flavor profile. I don't have too much experience with whites, and am looking forward to trying new varieties of them.

I'm especially interested in learning how to pair wines and foods, especially cheese! In the past I've done a few wine/cheese pairings at restaurants and it's always delicious, but I don't know where to start with making pairings of my own. I'm excited to have the chance to invite some friends over to try out combinations and see what works well. When it comes to other foods, all I know is that whites pair well with seafood and reds pair well with steak...but I imagine that's the just the tip of the iceberg and am looking forward to learning about more specific parings and flavor notes.

I'm also curious to find out what the professor's opinions on mimosas are! Super excited to get started!