This Web site is the product of a wine-tasting club started in the fall of 2000 by a dozen friends in New Orleans. Over the previous couple of years, several of us had taken a wine appreciation class given at Delgado Community College by Jerry Henry of Heritage House Wines. (If you were a wine newbie in Southeast Louisiana in 1999-2000 or so, Jerry's classes were well worth checking out. He's since retired, but someone else from Heritage House is still teaching.) At any rate, we wanted to keep tasting and comparing and learning after the classes ended.

Ever since, we've been meeting about once a month. In any given session, we sample seven to ten wines that share a common geographic origin, grape varietal or some other characteristic. We talk about each wine and score it on a 20-point scale.

Some wine experts don't like to taste in groups because they think the person with the strongest opinion usually sways everyone else's. And some people are very particular about having the right equipment at a tasting.  On his Web site, Robert Parker says, "I find it essential to have properly sized and cleaned professional tasting glasses."

We're not that fussy.

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After a bunch of tastings, most of us had a bunch of hand-scribbled, wine-stained notes that didn't make much sense when you looked at them and weren't much help when you went to the store. We decided to put our information online to make it easier to remember what we've been tasting -- and to make contact with other people who might have the same burgeoning interest in wine. The site went live in March 2002. Its name comes from Soon's description of a particularly bold Syrah: "a mouthful of purple sunshine."



CONTACT US

If you have any questions or comments about this Web site, please e-mail:

info [at] purplesunshine [dot] com


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