An Introduction!

 Hello, Readers!

My name is James Copley, and right up front I will make one thing clear -- I love alcohol! I love beer, spirits, cider, wine, and any other deliciously concocted medium by which we can enjoy the wonderful gift of alcohol (in moderation of course!). However, this blog will be dedicated to the drink I believe holds the most history, art, and widest flavor variety, wine. 

First, a little about me. From a very early age, I was exposed to an appreciation for good quality wine through my mother, who is Chilean and can trace her roots to the Basque country in Spain. While a little too young to really enjoy these wines myself, it was basically an unspoken rule in the house that wine was too good to have badly made versions of it. 

By the time I was a teenager, I regularly drank wine in the house with my family, and by 21 I was ready to enter the wine world myself. Since then, I've immersed myself as much as possible by visiting vineyards all throughout Virginia, Chile, and Italy, along with independent study and exploration (alotttt of tasting :) ). This past September, I began working at the Vintage Cellar in Blacksburg, which has hugely expanded my horizons with wine. 

The Geography of Wine class has been something I've been wanting to take since I first heard about it a few years ago, and now that my schedule finally allows for it, I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge about the process of wine making, vineyard management, and anything else I can pick up along the way. This is gonna be a great semester!