Newbie is confused......

[lizardbrains]

Hi, newbie. I'm an ameteur myself, so I can't help you a whole lot, but I'll try!

Each variety of wine tastes different. Kind of like each variety of candy bar is different. Maybe you like chocolate, so you'll go for Kit Kat, or Snickers, or Baby Ruth. Maybe you don't go with Butterfinger, because it's so sweet it hurts your teeth! Or maybe you prefer the non-chocolate, so you go with Gummi Bears, or Nerds, or Gobstoppers. And maybe you don't go with the Sour Patch Kids because they are too sour.

It's the same with wine! I prefer red wine over white. I prefer the less acidic/tannic wines. But... it's taken me a while to realize this. You just have to try different wines to figure out what you do and don't like.

Certain wines fall into different categories. Dessert wine, I have found, is super sweet that you feel like you're getting a cavity. Maybe it's just my personal experience, but that convinced me not to drink a dessert wine with a normal dinner! Maybe next time I'll try dessert wine with... surprise, dessert!

My big recommendation to you is this: If you're trying to figure out what types/varieties of wine you do/don't like, try different brands of each type, because the one brand you try, may not accurately reflect that varieties character. For example, I wanted to know what White Zinfandel is like, so I got 4 different brands of it (Beringer, Sutter Home, etc. - can you tell I'm cheap?!), and tried them with some friends. So, I had a glass of the Beringer White Zin, and then a glass of the Sutter Home White Zin, etc. And I had an "AhHa!" moment! I realized, "Okay, that's what White Zin tastes like!" because I could taste the slight differences between the different brands, but I could taste the things that were the same... only then could I experiment with the different brands of White Zin, and decide which brand I liked the best, or if indeed I even liked White Zin! Kind of like tasting that a Baby Ruth and a Snickers both have peanuts and caramel, and they're both a chocolate candy, but they have slight differences, and I've decided that I like Baby Ruth better.

Okay, that's my 2 cents, to a newbie from a newbie!!!! :-)