First Blog Assignment: My Experience with Wine!

 Hello Readers,

I am Jackson Comer, a senior in biomedical engineering here at Virginia Tech, and am incredibly excited about the semester ahead. My personal experience with wine began in college, specifically surrounding moscatos (white or pink), a bottled sangria (black label), and wine mixed drinks stemming from boxed wine. While a very juvenile approach to wine, I had always been fond of sweet tasting drinks. Along with discovering that I do like wines, I began to drink wine a little more often as the price per alcohol content is more efficient when grabbing the proper bottle. 

As I have lived through college, my parents, friends, and peers introduced me to different wines. Whether it was a new boxed wine because that was what was on tap for the night or grabbing a different bottle that had a sale tag on it, my wine palette began to develop more rapidly. I began to appreciate different whites, roses, and reds. On the side of whites, I highly enjoy blends, sticking to fruit tastes such as peach or pear, and Pinot Grigio. With roses, I highly enjoy grapefruit and strawberry flavors. With reds, I highly enjoy blends with flavors stemming from red and black fruits. I also really enjoy both fresh white and red sangrias (something I was introduced to early)! I also enjoy sparkling wines as well. I am not a huge fan of overpowering red wines but can appreciate them when necessary with food pairings.

As of right now, I tend to try to keep my mind open when tasting wines, trying to find something to appreciate in each wine I taste (or why someone else might enjoy it more). Thus, I don't want to say I don't like certain wines. I just think I can't appreciate them yet. From this course, I want to learn what to expect from wines with the same names (Pinot Grigios and chardonnays) and how to distinguish their tastes based on where the grapes are grown. Thus, I would like to directly compare and taste the same grapes coming from two very different regions. I would also like to learn about the different tastes that can be induced/seen in wines and how to distinguish these tastes (the proper way to "diagnose" the wine's flavors). In addition to everything else, I am excited to learn about the production of wine and what it might take to get a winery/vineyard up and running.

May the wine flow this semester,

Jackson Comer