How to get the wine you really want
Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it.  I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob.  My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years.  Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between what we liked and what the wine critics and the market liked.  The real turning point came when we did a blind tasting of Cabernets, all from California.  The wines ranged from a $5 bottle of Barefoot cab up to a $100 bottle of Silver Oak.  There were twelve of us in the group and every single one rated the Silver Oak dead last, and the Barefoot either first or second.  Since then we&#x27;ve repeated similar experiments many times, usually with similar results.  We can still freak out wine snob friends on occasion by sneaking a bottle of Barefoot in to a high-end tasting.<p>On another occasion we were at a bed-and-breakfast that served afternoon wine and cheese.  The whole room (including us) was raving about how complex and delicately nuanced the white wine was.  It turned out to be Gallo Rhine Wine in a box.<p>(BTW, it&#x27;s absolutely not the case that all cheap wines taste good.  We tried the notorious two-buck chuck and thought it was absolutely horrible.)<p>The point is: wine snobbery is bullshit.  Find what <i>you</i> like and drink that, and don&#x27;t pay attention to anything that anyone else says.  If Beringer white zinfandel is what turns you one, more power to you.  (Actually, the worst possible outcome for a real wine fan is to discover that they really do enjoy Romanee Conti or Screaming Eagle.  I really like Opus 1, but I wish I didn&#x27;t :-)<p>So I think this roll-your-own-wine blender is a terrific idea.  I can&#x27;t wait to try it.  (I wish I&#x27;d thought of it!)