In Part 1, I gave a brief personal history of my experiences with wine up to the age of 50. I ended it at the beginning of what has become my wine enthusiast stage. In the beginning of anything, you are a rookie. If you look in a dictionary, you will find the definition of Rookie to be "a dumb ass that continually makes mistakes in judgment and decision making due to a lack of experience".

In my case, the biggest rookie mistake was in believing the most important thing to consider in choosing a wine is temperature. It needs to be cold. First of all, I come by this naturally. You don't grow up in Texas without an appreciation of ice. I have never understood people who don't want much ice in their drink because they think they're getting ripped off or something. I want a lot of ice because there's nothing worse than a warm, tepid drink. Secondly, if you read Part 1, those nights of drinking dry red wine at room temperature in an unairconditioned house probably had some influence on my thought process.

Generally speaking, you will find (especially around here) that white wines are chilled and reds are not. I suppose this is still due to the "red wines should be served at room temperature" thing. Actually, most red wines should probably be kept at around 55 degrees or so. Regardless, you won't find many restaurants in this area that serve any red wine that has been chilled. So as a rookie with a "cold" state of mind, I chose to begin with white wines. This presented a big problem. however. I didn't really care for white wine. All I knew was Riesling and Chablis. One was sweet and one was dry. I don't care for sweet and every Chablis I had ever tasted was just plain nasty. But, there was something else that seemed to be very popular and was available at just about every restaurant - White Zinfandel.

White Zinfandel or "White Zin" as we like to say, is the rookie wine of choice. Not too sweet, not too dry and most importantly, it's served cold. You see someone drinking White Zin and you know they're either a wine rookie, not a drinker or thinking "Why didn't I order a Budweiser?". Looking back on it now, I find it somewhat embarrassing to think about all of those evenings at fine restaurants ordering White Zin with my Filet Mignon or Parmesan Encrusted Chilean Sea Bass. I don't want to sound too uppity, but I equate it with those people who used to come into my bar and order Courvoisier and orange juice or Cointreau and 7-Up.

Nevertheless, White Zin serves its purpose by getting us on the road to enjoying fine wine. Next time, I'll try and explain the process of growth through experimentation. White Merlot anyone?