Getting Started
Written By: Dylan York on Tue, Jan 22nd 2008
Yesterday I got the phone call that I had been waiting on, my personal effects had arrived at the port authority. Thus far, the process had been quite painless and only taken about three weeks. It is an amazing feeling to sell almost everything you own and start over. All I have left is what I unpacked from two suitcases and the rest is in a warehouse sitting on a palate waiting on me to claim.
I arrived at the Grenada Port Authority with my paperwork in hand and began the process. After a three hours of inspections, getting totally hosed on customs fees, and hiring transport, I arrived back home with my stuff. Most important of my belongings are my cask iron Dutch oven, 10 piece cookware set, a Moroccan tagine, and two boxes of wine books. This is everything I need for the next two years. In this time I will study every aspect of the world of wine while utilizing the islands rich resources to create interesting recipes. Finding new cuisine ideas and paring wines with them will be my new hobby and I will share that with you in the articles to follow. I am very excited right now, this place finally feels like home and I am eager to start my studies.
The first thing I will do is review my books and get organized. I have quite the selection and would like to recommend some of my favorites to you. Two great books if you are just getting into wine are The Wine Bible, by Karen MacNiel, and Kevin Zraly's Windows of the World. Both of these books will give you the basics needed to get around. Once you are done with those, play around with some specific subject books like Clive Coates' Encyclopedia of Wines and Domaines of France, and for a quick read try Matt Kramer's New California Wine. In my opinion, for ultimate reference books that you will use all the time, The Oxford Companion to Wine 3rd Edition and Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia 4th Edition are the best. I plan on using all of these and more while preparing for my diploma course.
My plan is to refresh myself with the structures of the curriculum and then dive right into studying wine regions. I will start with the systemic approach to wine. This is a tool that both master sommeliers and masters of wine use when analyzing and evaluating a wine. In the next article I will tell you all about it.
