Talking Wine in a Light Beer Town
Here in the Verde Valley in AZ, if you don’t live in Sedona then you *must* be a Budweiser/Miller Light/Keystone drinker! I say this with affection for my cowboy town. 
I visited a booze drive through last night. I parked and went inside to look for some wine. While I was looking the clerk girl asked me if I knew about wine. I said, “a little bit.”
What followed was fascinating to me. By this town’s standards, i am an expert. lol. She never had any idea what to recommend to her drive-through clients. We talked about easy-drinking wines, what Champagne actually is (and found a single bottle of it, all dusty and $50 on the shelf), discussed how to drink port, what is a bold red and what isn’t, and how much wine vs light beer it takes to get someone trashed. How to pick something out that will go over well on a romantic date without spending a fortune (there is no money in this town unless you are a cattle baron).
We spent a fun hour going over everything on the shelves while I selected a nice Penfolds cab for myself that was only $8!
She’d never had wine and was curious, so I recommended she start with the Barefoot Wines, which are very easy and drinkable - starting with either a White Zin, Merlot or Chardonnay. I even found a White Merlot on the shelves for her to try. She said she likes sweet mixed drinks, so I wanted her to try wines that were easy for beginners. We talked about trying port, on a romantic date, with some nice rich chocolate.
She was very avidly interested in all of this and I felt good passing on what I knew - which granted, is limited. I hope she discovers a few wines. 
2 Responses to “Talking Wine in a Light Beer Town”
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I have the same issues here, only with beer. Most people I know only drink the basic Bud/Miller stuff and look at me funny when I wax all poetic about lagers and ales and microbrews.
Yeah, we talked a little about beers, also. But if someone doesn’t like beer in the first place, it’s harder to get them introduced to good ales and such.
Wine seems to have so many options from sweet to dry, fruity to oaky, that there’s something for everyone.
Beerwise, I love microbrewed ales like Fat Tire best, but they are not good ‘beginner” beers.
Maybe blonde ales or hefeweisens are good for newbies to beer?