Merkin Vineyards - 2006 Chupacabra

I think my photography skills have gotten much better

Over the next two weeks, I will be going back in time a little to talk about some of my first red wines, which ultimately led me to starting this blog.

The Merkin Vineyards Chupacabra takes us back to the summer of 2010, during a visit from the BFF, Luigi.

Luigi is one of those friends who it feels like no time has passed when we see each other, even if it's been years. We always pick up right where we left off. For this particular visit, she brought me a present: a bottle of wine from the vineyard owned by one of my favorite band's lead singers. Some of you may be familiar with James Maynard Keenan of Tool, and some of you might even know he has a vineyard and winery in Arizona. This is a bottle from his Merkin Vineyard, which is a part of the Arizona Stronghold wines we owns with his partner.

After Mexican food and margaritas, we went back to my place and prepared for this lovely bottle. I was quite excited.

I remember both of us thinking that this was the best wine we had ever tried. Dry and full-bodied and delicious. Back then, I only really drank white, but after tasting this nectar from the gods, I decided maybe I was missing out.

By the time we finished the bottle (yes, we finished the bottle between the two of us - we had a habit, back in the day, of very drunken shenanigans), we were much more intoxicated than we thought. We both swore pictures from that night would never see the light of day, on penalty of death.

I've mostly kept to that promise.

The second time I tried this wine was only months before I started this wine blog.

I finally got a hold of the Arizona Stronghold documentary Blood Into Wine, and from that moment, my wine education began. I discovered that there is so much more to wine - from growing grapes to fermentation to even tasting - than I could ever imagine. The wealth of stories that could be told was extensive. Just learning about Maynard and his story during that documentary was enough to plant the seed in me.

I miss my BFF when she's far away

About a week after that, I discovered that the Eldridge Hotel's monthly wine tasting that month would be featuring Arizona Stronghold wines.

It was too much of a coincidence not to be fate. I dragged a friend of mine along with me to the tasting. We both dressed up in fancy clothes and pretended to be very sophisticated as we tasted the different selections. My allusions were shattered a little bit when I realized I knew more about the wines being presented from the documentary than the people showing them.

After the tasting, my friend and I went straight to the liquor store. They didn't carry any of the whites we wanted, but I got my second bottle of Chupacabra, remembering how much I loved it the first time.

The second time did not disappoint.

And so, folks, this is the wine that started me down the path to drinking red wine again. I was given a push by a book I read that encouraged drinking red wine a few times a week for health benefits. What better excuse to imbibe a little than it's good for you, right?

So, friends, after the past several months of you reading about my various wine adventures, you now know what started it all: an amazing bottle shared with my best friend, a powerful documentary, a serendipitous wine tasting, and a book that outlined the health benefits of drinking red wine.

It didn't take the writer in me too long to realize the stories I'd be able to tell.