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Pour Decisions By Brett Chappell Have corkscrew, can travel Learning about wine might best be summed up with the cliche, “Its not the destination; its the journey.” The “best bottle,” the “greatest wine,” the “most popular style” might be wonderful to try, but if you arrive at your journey’s end with no understanding of where you are, have you grown, and can you appreci ate where you have ended up? The paiidemic scuttled many travel plans, but what have you done to replace them? I suggest traveling the world through wine. You can start now and tour at your own pace. Like travel, learning about wine requires an open, adventurous mind. You will not like everything you taste, but the point is to taste as much as you can. Also, knowing why you don’t care for a particular wine is an exercise in self-awareness and knowledge. Would it be wrong to visit Paris and claim you don’t like Paris because you ate snails and you didn’t like snails? The same goes for tasting a wine from Rioja and proclaiming you don’t like Rioja or Spanish wine in general. When you go on a trip, you prepare for the land you are visiting. Don’t pack a bikini for Antarctica. For wine travel, prepare your palate, learn a little of the language, and get a travel guide. To prepare for a trip to Provence, my wife and I purchased Rick Steves’ Provence and the French Riviera. Ten dollars had us traipsing around Nice like a local. The same goes for wine. There are many wine books from which to choose. Beware of diving in too deep or spending your money on a fluff piece. Wine Folly’s TTze Master Guide is a great start if you want an elementary guide. For the best learning, my favorite is Karen MacNeU’s The Wine Bible (2nd edition). At nearly 1,000 pages, the book seems daunting, but is well segmented for easy reading and study. The book has more information than can be retained in the first reading but is nice to refer to when a fact needs to be recalled. It deserves a place on your bookshelf Reading a guide is one thing, yet wine is about experiencing with smell and taste also. You cannot properly study wine without pulling some corks. Not breaking the bank, of course, is important. Finding the right wines at a reason able price requires a bit of sleuthing. Following the lead, of your chosen guide book, you should be able to source almost every bottle you need in a small wine shop. The shopkeeper should be able to suggest representative wines that exem plify the subject you are studying. Keeping track of where you have been (what you have drunk) and your im pression is your travel journal. After a bit, you should see patterns emerging. You may prefer higher acid wines over fruity sorts. In their youth, tannic wines may not be your favorite, but as the wines age, you may like their more structured style. Eventually you will find that even if you do not care for a specific wine style, as a traveler/student you will still try wines outside your “like” zone and learn from them. And this is when you know you have been bitten by the wine bug. You contin ue to try wines for more than just pleasure. You taste to learn. You travel to new lands through a bottle. You look back at what happened in a particular year/vin tage. You remember where you were and who you were with when drinking a specific wine. You taste for differences as well as similarities. You grow. As American actor Danny Kaye claimed, “To travel is to take a journey into yourself.” At MF Chappell Wine Merchant, we are starting a guided wine class in Febru ary that will span 2022. Each month we will pair a six-pack of wines, an over view article, and a virtual meeting to a chapter or two of Karen MacNeil’s The Wine Bible. Brett Chappell is a French Wine Scholar, Certified Sommelier and Wine Educa tor. He and his wife Jen, a Wine and Spirits Education Trust Level Two, own ME Chappell Wine Merchant in Atlantic Beach. Their website is MFChappellWine. com, and the phone number is 252-773-4016. We Bpec ialiie in Cleaning Orienpai ^ T^rea Fngs NEW LOCATION 247-7807 / 638-7020 800-560-7807 Professional Service For Over 18 Years An nCRC Certified Firm • 24 Hour Emergency Flood Water Removal Service Greg Patterson HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU IN YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE? • Investment Management • Retirement Planning • Insurance Strategies • Tax & Estate Planning • Risk Management James Allen Canady ContHCl iLS today for your complimcnuiry copy of our " 10 Common Retirement Mistakes ” booklet. Call 252.515.7800 or vi.sil u.s at 712 Bridgc.s Street in Morchead City and online at t^Avw.niyatiantiovealth.coin 'Securities and advisory ser\ ice.s offered through Commonwealth Financial Network* Member t'JNRA/SIPC a Registered Investment Advisor. Fixed insurance products and services are offered by Atlantic Wealth Management, LLC, February 2022 i The Shoreline 11
The Shore Line (Pine Knoll Shores, N.C.)
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