What wine tastes like Kool-Aid?

Katy, If you are "getting in on the ground floor" with regards to wine, there are a few options. Sutter Home White Zinfandel is fairly simple and lightly sweet with a bit of tartness and no aftertaste. Mogen David Concord wine is basically Welch's grape juice with alcohol (and it's Kosher, if you are Jewish). I can certainly relate to your original post - I didn't develop a real interest in wine until my early 30's, and I found most wine stores bewildering at first. So, dive in! The fun is just beginning, despite the cold reception you got from some other posters here.

Dan-O

Thank you for the clarification.

Though not normally the "stuff" that is bandied about here, many of us can recall (recall - yeah, right, "what did I come into this room for?") when our tastes and preferences were elsewhere with regards to wine.

The question, that you pose, is not an uncommon one, though possibly worded a bit differently.

You might also want to look into some of the "fruit" wines, made from products other than grapes. In Colorado, USA, several of the vintners, many who make some fairly serious wines, also do these, as do many producers in Virginia, UAS. Depending on where you are, there might well be wineries that work with peach, strawberry, and honey (Mead, and mead-like wines). Some of these can be nice when well chilled and in small quantities.

Also, many wineries NOT in Napa, Sonoma, Willamette, etc. produce wines in a lighter, sweeter style, as their likely clientle choose that/those style(s).

Good luck, and don't be surprised if your tastes one day include some of the "fine" wines. It happens all of the time.

Hunt

Lambrusco was also a nice accompaniment for my wife's "barbeque'd shrimp." The sweetness cut some of the spice. I've long since substituted Gr Rieslings, but do fondly recall the "old" days of nice Lambursco.

Ah, you ARE allowing me to relive my mis-spent youth. Mo's, how I long for that place. Soon I'll start humming the chorus to "Reflections of My Life." Well, maybe not, but nearly.

Thanks for the laugh, Joe,

Hunt

I thought so too, Mark. White Zin was the first thing that came to mind for me as a recommendation. Beringer perhaps? That's a reasonable entry level wine. With time she may come to appreciate a nice Riesling, then a Chardonnay, then maybe a Pinot Noir.

I started with Blue Nun, Mateus Rosé, etc. Awful dreck, but one must start somewhere.

Tom S

I was just a slip of a kid, when my father opened one of the raffia bound Chiantis.

I pestered him for a taste and he relented (here, I'll fix you, drink this and weep!!!!!) but I didn't weep - at aged "somewhere about 12" I just loved the stuff.

Back then NZ didn't have a wine industry to speak of - just some fortified stuff we called "plonk" - all wine was imported.

At aged 18 I left home for the big wide world and crossed the Tasman to Australia, where such delights as Kaiser Stuhl Hermitage and Ben Ean Moselle awaited.

And here I am on the eve of my 58th birthday, older, not much wiser - and still seeking the perfect drop.

First wine I drank seriously was a Mondavi Fume Blanc at the winery, then a Napa Gamay and finally a Moscato d'Oro--this was the summer of 1997. Before that I had Mateus, Liebraulmilch, Sangria. I don't recall what wines I bought at the Cholon PX, but I know it was a Bordeaux, as the English Officer I was watching was grabbing for $3.20. This was in 1968. During the Tet Offensive I had a Chateauneuf du Pape. I ordered the CDP when I ate at one of Saigon's European Restaurants. I continued to do that back home, CDP, or a beaujolais cru... What ever was red and cheapest on a wine list.

My first, was something sweet & concord at a seder in 1949, I got sick and had a headache. Next alcohol was a schilvolitz poured for me from my Grandfather, so I wouldn't like alcohol--we're talking winter of 1952. Gradually in Italian Restaurants in Greenwich Village, I ordered valpoloicella or bardolino in the fiasco bottle, probably Bolla. I also liked the Bolla Soave but not as much as Hans Christiandorf Liebraumilch.

After I visited Mondavi I was hooked and started going to classes & arranging tastings centered around a specific grape. I brought my first bottle for storage at Charing Cross Liquors in Baltimore, it was a 1973 Louis Martini Cab and a 1974 Mirassou Harvest Petite Sirah at Perring Plaza Liquors soon followed, I bought two of those. By 1980 I had tasted & owned Yquem, the 1974 Conn Creek Cab and a 1928 Petrus and haunted stores in DC every Saturday concentrating on Morris Millers and Harry's Waterside who also conducted great classes with written commentary from Frank Schoomaker, I used in most of the classes I conducted. I met Robert Parker for the first time when I was concentrated on buying California at MacArthur Liquors. I believe before I started going over his house on Friday nights, he steered me to some 1918 DRC Le Tache at a Hublein Tasting where I also freaked on Tokzji Ezzenzia and 4 putts from the 19th century.

Sorry your Lordship never like the Nobillo wines from your patch but a guy named John Finlay Jones came to Baltimore from Oz to teach and he brought some old Leasingham and Grange with him. It was for me California again..........

Welches grape juice with alcohol. I wrote that down. :)

Thanks much!!

--Katy

Joseph B. Rosenberg, you wrote, "My first, was something sweet & concord at a seder in 1949, I got sick and had a headache. "

Can wine (if a newbie like me) make you sick? I drank (choked down) about 3 inches of red wine in a paper cup at a Summer party a month or so ago, and then about three hours later I woke up at 2am and threw up. I know some people are allergic to the sulfites in wine. But was the wine itself the likely cause of my nausea? I've never drank a beer in my life, but I've had a couple of wine coolers and a hard lemonade or two in my life. They never made me ill. But it seemed the wine did. Or do you think it couldn't have been the wine? I certainly didn't drink enough of it to make me inebriated. I have yet to be inebriated in my life. :) Yes, including college.

Thanks!

-Katy

If I am remembering correctly, my sister used to mix Perrier water with Mogen David wines and made her own Arbor mist type of stuff like 20 years ago. She never liked wine, but that was palatable to her. Not that I'm recommending it or anything, I'd probably just buy the arbor mist.

Now she likes those fruity wine cooler drinks like Bartles & James, Seagrams and others make. I know there are tons of them but I'm not familiar with all the names. They might be worth a shot.

Ted

Dan The Man wrote:

I can't remember my first taste of wine, but I'd bet that it was from the ever-present decanter of Charles Krug Zinfandel that graced our dinner table. My first vivid wine-tasting memory is of a Riesling Kabinett in Germany when I was 9. On that same trip, I also sampled various village wines that probably were Grosslagen but came to the table in carafes rather than bottles.

Mark Lipton