I love wine. I love the taste, the feel, the smell of wine. I love that there are perfect wines to go with different foods. I love that wine has health benefits. I love that wine can come in really pretty bottles and be stored in really pretty wine racks. I love that wine gets better with age.

If I won the lottery, I would have a wine cellar. I barely have room for the decorative wine rack in my kitchen that holds four bottles. I love the idea of cooking a dinner and just having the perfect wine on hand. I could choose a fine white for the whitefish entree, or a deep red for the prime rib that I would also be able to afford. There are so many food/wine combinations, the possibilities really are endless.

With more of my lottery money, I would take a trip to Italy or France (or both) and travel around to different wineries, experiencing the different flavors of the countryside. One of my favorite parts of any movie is in “French Kiss” when Kevin Kline was having Meg Ryan smell the different herbs from the ground and taste the wine, and she could taste the herbs she was smelling. I love that wine can be such a sensory experience.

Here’s a funny wine-involved story for you. When my husband proposed to me, he took me up to the top of a mountain via ski lift in the summertime. He had a small picnic, which included some kind of strawberry flavored wine. He went to open the wine with the corkscrew, but he was so nervous he didn’t notice there wasn’t a cork, but a screw top. He punched a hole right in the top of the lid. I think we poured the wine right through the hole.

I’ve noticed people who enjoy coffee also often enjoy wine, and I don’t think that’s by accident. In my coffee blog post, I wrote how there are people who drink coffee for the caffeine, for the pleasure of drinking it, or who don’t really like it and just drink it because other people do. Translate that over to wine. There are people who drink it for the alcohol, for the pleasure of drinking wine, or they don’t really like wine but drink it because other people do. I have a friend in that last group. She was going on about Arbor Mist wine – read cheap wine. Wine isn’t supposed to have a bite. That’s for cheap beer and vodka. This wine, well, bites. Sorry, if you think that’s good wine, you don’t really like wine.

So I guess that makes me a bit of a wine snob. That’s alright. If wine is good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me. I doubt he changed the water at the wedding into Arbor Mist. Now, I’m off to pour myself a glass of Pinot Grigio, or maybe a chilled Moscato. While I’m doing that, comment about your favorite wines. I’d love to try some new ones!