New to Wines

[dananne]

Speaking from my personal experience, and not making any assumptions (we all have a different learning/experimentation curve when beginning the "wine journey" thing), I started out really liking merlot. I found it approachable, easy to drink, and with flavors and aromas that I could easily identify with my inexperienced palate. I could usually recognize a plummy fruit flavor and frequently was able to detect some vanilla that I later learned was from the oak. When I started to experiment, it was with other merlot, but I began to get a bit bored -- I didn't see a whole lot of difference in what I was drinking (admittedly, I was staying around the same $10-ish price point). So, I began to branch out -- first with Australian syrah, actually. Eventually, I developed a wider appreciation of all the many wonderful other grapes that are out there, and I just have not returned to merlot all that often. Like Innkeeper, I have a very few merlot bottles in my cellar (I think I have 1 currently, out of about 180 bottles). The last one I had was about six months ago, and was an interesting one from a smaller southern Oregon winery that specializes in the Spanish tempranillo grape, of all things.

I guess what I'm trying to say (and, I hope I have not done so in an authoritative, condescending way, as I'm not nearly as experienced as most of the regulars on the board), is that there are a whole lot of wonderful wines out there that I only discovered after branching out from merlot. I'm not saying that merlot is bad -- I had many that I really enjoyed and have fond memories of -- but that experimentation is fun and, to my mind, one of the great things about wine. It is impossible to get bored!

Anyway, a belated welcome to the board, and happy drinking [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]