Beginnings

I love wine, there I said it. Love talking about wine, love reading about wine, love others talking about wine, love tv programs about wine but most of all love drinking wine. Now you may think I'm some kind of near alcoholic whose tipple of choice is fermented grape juice but that is far from the truth. I love lots of other intoxicating beverages too!! However I hope to use this blog to share my passion for wine and why I think it is the greatest beverage in the world (okay, after a well made cup of  PG Tips with one sugar).

California 1989
Ward Family Dinner

The truth is my love of wine is relatively new and I did not take wine seriously until I was well into my 20s. The photo was taken in 1989 whilst my family and I (aged 17) were on holiday in California and shows my parents and sister eating dinner in our apartment with a bottle of what I think is Robert Mondavi white (not sure what although probably someone could magnify the image and tell me). What is clear though is that I am not drinking wine, instead I have orange juice to enjoy with my meal and that would have been my choice. I think my sister, who was 12 at the time, was drinking wine mixed with lemonade.

Actually the whole notion of us drinking wine at all was quite unusual even then. The only time wine really made an appearance in our house was during a roast Sunday lunch where a bottle of Piesporter or possibly Niersteiner that had been purchased from our local Gateway (remember them!) supermarket.

In 1990 I got my first job in hospitality as a barman at a hotel. Wine over the bar in those days consisted of red or white (never rosé) served from giant optics hanging up in an 'ever so slightly' chilled cabinet hanging on the wall. My lack of knowledge, or even training, meant that I even filled a fridge with red wine once thinking I was doing the right thing (and before anyone says I am aware that some wines (Beaujolais, anyone) do benefit from a little refrigeration).

By 1997 I had left and returned to said hotel and was now in a junior management position with responsibility for banqueting operations. And better still, I was sent on my very first course to learn about wine. And what a revelation it was. I may blog about my liking of the WSET (Wines and Spirits Educational Trust) at a later date but the course for the first time got me to try red wine seriously and I realised that not all wine tastes the same. I still have my original notes from that course somewhere about, and ocassionally when I come across them they make me smile. But that was an opening for me into the wonderful world of wine and I've loved it ever since. Subsequently I completed two further courses in wine and proudly wear my green Advanced WSET pin badge on my suit every day at work. And once in a while, customers sometimes even ask me what it is and that gives me a real thrill!

Next time:
The rise and fall of Pinot Grigio. Oh, and Peter Stringfellow!

Enjoy your wine. Cheers!
Simon