And so begins my education...

I haven't always been a fan of wine. In fact, I hated the stuff and would only touch a rose if I absolutely needed to. It wasn't until a friend of mine invited me to the Niagara Wine Festival in 2001 that I really began to appreciate wine.

A couple of years ago I began to do more research on wine. I stumbled across a website that caught my attention and I immediately began to explore the world of wine. The website Wine Century Club opened my eyes to just how large the world of wine is. Wine knows no country boundaries, nor does it limit itself to just the upper class of society. No, wine is much more complicated than that. And I wanted to know more.

I ordered the giant poster that lists 184 different grape varieties from all over the world. The point of the poster (and the Wine Century Club) is to encourage wine lovers to expand their pallette. To try grape varietals they wouldn't normally try. To obtain membership into the Club, one must prove that they have tried different types of wine made from 100 grape varietals.

So that's my goal and then I'm going to go beyond that. My first goal is to gain membership into the Wine Century Club. My second goal is to try all 184 grape varietals listed on the poster.

So, the plan is to try one new wine each week until I've tried all 184. I've already run into some wines whose grape does not appear on the Wine Century Club poster so I'm guessing by the time I've finished, I will be close to trying nearly 200 different grapes. That basically means that I'm going to be drinking wine on a weekly basis for at least the next four years.

I've had harder tasks.

But by no means is this going to be easy. It's not as easy as one would think- just go into a store and purchase some wine. But here in Alberta, not every type of wine and grape varietal is available, or at the very least, easy to obtain. I've already looked into getting a wine made from the pignolo grape and I've come up empty. So, I may have to carefully plan my travels or rely on friends who travel to far away places to bring some wine back for me that I just can't get here in Alberta.

In any case, I've planned the next 13 weeks out so I'm good at least until April 2010. Only 3.75 years to go after that!

I'm also hoping to expand my cooking abilities while I'm at it so I'm planning a weekly meal that works well with each wine I try. I figure I may actually learn how to pair wine and food together! I'm relying on two new cookbooks I purchased to keep me on track. If anything, it gives me an excuse to throw a dinner party each week and hope that someone shows up and keeps me company. And I'll even let them throw in their opinion on the wine!

So tomorrow the wine quest begins. I've invited my brother Craig over for wine, dinner and to play some Wii. Luckily for me, my brother appreciates wine as much as I do and he too hopes to gain membership into the Wine Century Club so this is a great start for both of us.

The wine we are going to try is my least favourite wine to date and that is the Chardonnay. I'm hoping that the pick I've chosen will change my mind about chardonnays. We'll see how it goes.

I'm open to comments and suggestions as well and I hope to have a lot of fun on this wine journey of mine and I'm glad you're here to read about it with me. And if you're near me, here in Edmonton, feel free to join me for a glass of wine. I guarantee you the answer is yes!