Why I'm Taking This Course

I'm excited for this wine course because the wine product and market has profound meaning across time periods - past, present, future.

As a fan of history and cultural anthropology, I've found that wine is often a common factor in understanding places and people of the past. For example, it's impossible to understand either the Italian Renaissance or Roman mythology without constantly bumping into the importance of wine. Wine is deeply embedded in religion, politics and geography. As the documentary Somm alluded, to study wine is to study the land and to taste wine is to taste the soil, climate and topography of the regions of the world. Even in these first few sessions, I'm already beginning to think about international trade policies, supply and demand from different groups of people. While this is a business course, I hope this will also be a course in better understanding people and places of the past.

Honing in on the present time, wine is a friendly prospective hobby that has not received the intellectual attention it deserves. In my house is an accumulating stash of wine that I've been gifted and really should be tasted and appreciated. Dining out, I momentarily enjoy wine at restaurants and take photos of labels without any follow-up. While I have the luxury of time and energy at business school, I hope to get smarter and more insightful about this product that pops up in my life on an almost daily basis. This course will hopefully help me answer a broad range of questions. Such as, how can Trader Joe's possibly sell a bottle of wine named and priced "two buck chuck?" Do they make any profit on that? How can wine elevate a dining experience as a complementary good, or phrased differently, are the wine pairings worth it?

Lastly, as I think about the future after the GSB, I have no doubt that wine will continue to be ever present as an important symbol. Which wines will fill the glasses at the upcoming toasts I'll experience - graduation, birthdays, weddings, new jobs? Whether I end up becoming a wine fanatic or not, I see a continuing importance to this drink with thousands of years of staying power. I might as well embrace its meaning and importance, and develop a knowledge set to be thoughtful and intentional about how to include this product in my future moments.