My personal experience with wine

My personal experience with wine began during my early childhood with my parents, although it wasn't until recently that I became interested in wine myself. Growing up, my mom and dad collected wine, but it was more of a hobby. My dad didn't drink wine at all and my mom only drank certain types very rarely. One memory that I have from my childhood is always looking forward to holidays and helping my parents pick out which wine from their collection we would take to family gatherings. After my mom passed away and my dad ended up moving, I decided to take the wine rack and collection, which is now in my apartment, hence why I feel somewhat inclined to learn a bit more about wine.

The best experience I have had with wine thus far was during my trip to Italy this past summer. The trip was a reward trip through my aunts company and was all inclusive, incredibly fancy, top notch and an overall awesome free experience for a broke college student. With every single meal throughout the entire trip we were given a different red and white wine to choose from - most meals I had both (I mean why not...again free). Some of the wine was awesome and some was (in my opinion) terrible. I definitely discovered on this trip that I have a preference for white wine and am very picky when it comes to red wine.

Throughout this class I hope to learn more about what makes one bottle of wine so different from another bottle of wine - especially when it's the same type of wine...why do they taste so differently? My mom always used to be weird about the dates of the wine, but to me it seems a little backwards; with everything else in life, you want the newest and freshest product, but with wine its the opposite. I'm definitely interested in finding out more about the aging of wine and the effect it has on the taste. Lastly, I'd really love to find out how to properly store wine. I've been told that having my wine rack in my kitchen is wrong because of the lighting, yet I've also been told not to store my wine in the fridge. Yet, nobody has ever told me the right way, they've just pointed out that I'm doing it the wrong way. So hopefully when this course is over I'll be able to at least know how to take proper care of the wine that I have and learn to enjoy a broader variety of wines.