My First Post: Background

 Hi! My name is Graydon "Cooper" Whiteleather, and this is the start of my blog for Professor Boyer's Geography of Wine course at Virginia Tech.

I grew up in Upstate New York, in the Finger Lakes Region, which is known for its beautiful lakes, heavy snowfall, and hundreds of vineyards. For scale of how integrated wine is with my home area, my cross country coach's family runs a vineyard, and at least two other kids on the team had parents who worked at or owned vineyards in the area.

My senior year of high school, our chemistry teacher offered a year long class that was two quarters of organic chemistry, and two quarters of viti/viniculture - we didn't taste wines in class because we were all 17/18 years old, but learned about the culture and science behind growing grapes, making wine, and tasting that wine.

Not wine, but I have additional experience with alcohol production, as I took Dr. Sean O'Keefe's Brewing Science and Technology class here at VT back in Fall 2019, and I worked for Molson Coors Beverage Company's Shenandoah Brewery this past summer, as a Brewing Operations intern.

My tasting experience is limited - I've drank mostly wine from upstate NY; some rieslings and dry reds.

To be honest, my sense of smell is probably less sensitive than the average person's but I believe I have pretty good hang of putting mouthfeel and taste into words.

I'm hoping to improve my sense of smell, if possible, and be more able to predict what a wine will taste like just from its name and knowing where it is from.

Excited for this class, first wine blog coming soon!