Once upon a time, I woke up and decided to like wine.

Twelve years ago, I spent a year working at a high end restaurant at a certain rat-themed resort in Central Florida. It was the sort of place where the menu changed daily according to whatever the chef was able to buy at the dock and whatever produce was in season. If there was a new dish, we all tried it.

The wine list, all California wines, was the same way. If we got something new, we opened a bottle and passed it around so we could describe it to our guests. At the time, I did not like wine. I quickly learned the difference between good and bad, though just because I knew a wine was good didn't mean I liked it. I learned to like a lot of things that year, like braised red cabbage and, to everyone's utter shock, salad, but wine wasn't on that list. Over the years, I would sip at whatever my parents poured for Christmas dinner, but I never acquired a taste for it.

In retrospect, I realize that my parents' sweet, dry, fruity whites were not the right point of entry for me. Because one day about two years ago, I woke up with a mission, and it was this: I was going to acquire a taste for red wine. When those kinds of sudden impulses hit, I tend to obey them. I figure they happen for a reason, and I like to see where they go.

And that is how I found myself cluelessly wandering around a liquor barn, picking bottles almost at random. I came home with six. Most sane people would have bought just one to try, but well, somewhere in the back of my mind, I already knew I was getting it right.

Maybe you can blame my Disney restaurant training. Maybe you can blame that trip to Rome a few years earlier. Maybe it was simply time. Whatever it was, I don't question it. I'm typing this while sipping on an exquisite glass of 2005 Christian Moueix Bordeaux Merlot to celebrate being done with my summer Econ class. One review I found calls it "gentle and delicate", and that feels right. It is indeed a thing of beauty. Is that worth questioning, really?

Earlier this year I reconnected with an old classmate from grade school who happens to be in the wine business, and we naturally talk about wine quite a lot. His informal mentorship has turned my clueless little wine hobby into something more front and center. It's turned into an opportunity to tell stories. And I like that.