Apparently I'm a wine snob

What can I say. I honestly have never claimed to be an expert on wine. When I got to Italy in 2000 I knew next to nothing about wine. I had come from Kitzingen, Germany, which is famous for its Franken Wines, some of the best in Germany. I had never drank wine before I got to Germany and so I immediately decided to try to local wines. I did so and I liked them. But, I was naive. I knew absolutely nothing about wine. When I got to Italy I was still a beer man. I had an extensive knowledge of hops but knew nothing of the grape. Within a month of moving into my apartment my upstairs neighbor, Giampietro, came down with two bottles of vino, one red, one white. He proceeded to explain what, specifically, I was supposed to eat with each bottle. That's where it all started. I remember a conversation I had with Giampietro early on when I told him that, while Germany didn't have any good red wine, they did have some very good white wine. Giampietro scoffed at this and said something to the effect of Italian white wine being much better quality then Germany. I just kind of chuckled to myself at this and thought "That's just him being biased towards his own country". After all, I had taken a tour of the Rhine valley and sampled some of the best wines that Germany had to offer. A few months later I went back to Germany for a week for a class on the government's nickel and I was dying to try some German wine, if only to prove Giamietro wrong. Well, I drank some of the best wines that Germany had to offer and wouldn't you know it, Giampietro was right. I remember the first sip, thinking that, wow, this just tastes like a different wine than what I remember. And by "different", I meant "not as good".


Tune in tomorrow...or, whenever I get around to it....for the next part of why I am apparently a wine snob....