part 1.
part 2.
part 3.
Please remember, this is anti-wine collecting. Remember Star Trek episode #33, aired October 6, 1967? It's like that. Which side is good and which side is evil is your call, but keep Heraclitus in mind on that one.
If this were regular wine collecting, you'd read a bunch of stuff, learn a bunch of stuff, buy a bunch of stuff, taste a bunch of stuff, talk to a bunch of other people about it, and buy some more stuff...after reading some more. Stuff. But we don't have time for that, or, let's be honest, the inclination. The truth is, it starts all innocent but within like five minutes you realize wine is an endless morass of seemingly necessary information to merely enjoy one really nice glass of wine before you die. We just want to cut to that last part, the really good glass of wine.
HOWEVER, though only sometimes, a little teeny-tiny bit of reading could be helpful. There is good wine and there is bad wine, and if you like bad wine it doesn't make it good wine, it just means you like bad wine. This may be wine for the 99%, but we're still aiming for the good wine.
The links in the side-bar to the right there are links that are generally in a language I comprehend, that tell me interesting things, with accessible knowledge. I don't need some expert talking so far over my head I feel like a puny loser. The thing is, that writer has no interest in me anyway; he's talking to the guy who gets what he's saying, his target audience. So: decide what you want to know, and find the writers who are targeting that.
A pattern will begin to emerge, the stories that interest you, what you pause to read about; it is exactly this that defines your interest in wine.
Could be the story of the vineyard.
Could be the descriptions of the wines.
Could be the picture of the guy picking grapes.
Could be the dog standing next to him, sniffing at the dirt.
Could be the name.
Could be label.
Could be that one color on the label.
It could be anything, anything you want it to be. There is no right or wrong. Don't let anyone but you define your connection to wine.
So you read a little, you figure out what matters to you, what connects you, what intrigues you, and now you take your duly saved pile of crumpled bills, get on your bike and head out to the wine store. Because even if what piqued your interest about wine was some internal, obscure idea, there is a GOOD wine that can answer to that.
