My roommate brought me home three bottles of wine and a copy of Wine and Spirits Quarterly today, I’m also getting ready to throw a dinner party and I’m being asked if friends should bring the wine. That doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, it’s just made me realize that I am the “wine friend.” I am frequently asked what kind of wines to pair with food, what wines to try when someone is just getting into wine, and friends have realized that the mere mention of wine will get my attention. It’s gotten to the point where people who are just getting to know me realize my passion for wine.  I had mentioned to a friend that I went to a bar I didn’t particularly like the night before, he responded by telling me that the bar had good wine. (The bar doesn’t really have good wine, he was just telling me that to see if I would change my mind because of wine.) I even met with a professor who I am a teaching assistant for to discuss a class and ended up having to feed the meter so he and I could talk more about wine.

I feel like the Wino of OU because I’m always the one holding the wine glass when everyone else has the red plastic cups; because I’m getting to the point where I can recommend starter wines to people; because I talk about it so frequently that friends have purchased Wine for Dummies just to keep up with me; because for my house warming party I am hosting a wine tasting; and I could go on.

So how did I get to this place, the place of loving Cab when at first I thought Riesling was a little too dry? How did I get to the point of shameless self promotion of both my wine articles at The Second Glass and this blog? Where else? It started right here at OU!

A professor of mine, who has become a dear friend thought it was a cool idea to let us try wines from the areas we were learning about. Naturally, I didn’t really like the wine he brought in at first, but I thought it was fascinating and set out to find out how it was made. From there I began to learn about the wine making process and the different grapes and purchased lots of wine information books. I approached the world of wine a bit differently and discreetly at first because my family doesn’t drink wine and they didn’t appreciate my growing love for it, I had no one to teach me or recommend anything to me.  I then reached out on Twitter. I began reading the tweets of sommeliers and would Google the wine, I would make myself try all different whites and reds, I’d write my own tasting notes that I could understand, and then I began to write for The Second Glass. That gave me a lot of opportunity to try wines that I wouldn’t normally have known anything about and meet people in the wine industry who I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Now I will mention something about a wine and have to stop and ask myself “How did I know that?” I soak up the wine biz like a sponge, I’m only starting to get into it, but I know this is my true passion. I have already left my heart and many great friends in wine country. I can only hope to continue with my knowledge and teach my friends about this world so I won’t be the only one drinking shiraz at the party.