This column needs to start with a rather embarrassing confession.
I didn’t start my love affair with wine by drinking the
good stuff; I discovered wine by drinking wine coolers.
Why is that a confession? I’m not exactly sure, but it somehow seems
like the sort of thing that wouldn’t enhance a wine connoisseur’s prestige, and
I certainly wouldn’t ask for a wine cooler—even a yummy one—in a high end
restaurant.
But the fact is that the only reason I appreciate a
nice wine today is because I started drinking wine coolers in college—when they
were all the rage. As time went by, I graduated from coolers to white wine and
then to red wine and pretty soon I began studying and enjoying all kinds of
fine wine. I never would have gotten
there if it hadn’t been for wine coolers.
It’s been a few decades since I was interested in wine
coolers,
