Day 13: Sutter Home White Zinfandel
Guest post by Chris Huyghe
Let me preface this article by saying that I’m not a writer. I’m not even a native English speaking person. I’m originally from a small town on the Belgian Coast near the border with France. For most, Belgium is synonymous with beer, but oddly enough I’m not a beer drinker. I have, however, been a wine drinker my whole life.
I was probably 16 when I started drinking wine and my initial experiences were mainly with French wines. I loved to hang out with my friends and we could not afford expensive wine. So price was definitely a factor in those days but it didn’t stop me from loving wine and making it my drink of choice.
I have NOT been blessed with a great palate. I don’t taste the rose petals, pineapple, nutmeg, etc. When it comes to tasting wine, I’m not a critic, I’m not an analyst. I couldn’t be if I wanted to. I’m just a consumer and a wine lover. I’m an average Joe.
Back in the early 90’s, before I moved permanently to the U.S., I was living from paycheck to paycheck. I traveled in a RV all around the West Coast of the U.S. for two weeks with five of my best friends. It was our first trip to the U.S. ever and we basically lived on Sutter Home White Zinfandel. Those were the days! We drank it sitting on the beach in San Diego. We drank it in campgrounds in Yosemite National Park. We drank it when we rented a boat on Lake Powell, on the border between Utah and Arizona.
We’d buy it in bulk at supermarkets we found along the way— was it in jugs back then?
I don’t remember exactly. It doesn’t matter. We were happy. It was fun.
I have to admit that I have not tasted White Zinfandel in over a decade. But there is a wine for every moment in your life and Sutter Home was our introduction to American wines. And we loved it.
Quick Background Note: The Blue Collar Wine Guide is a 30-day, 30-wine experiment that looks at some of the world’s most popular, consumer-friendly wines. The idea is to take off my wine-writer shoes and stand instead in the shoes of Jane-and-Joe-in-front-of-a-wall-of-wine. Thank you for reading today’s post!
