Who is Reggie Solomon of Wine Casual?
I came to wine quite by accident.
Growing up in
I can’t really say I ever enjoyed the taste of wine, but it was something I allowed myself the opportunity to try every few years or so from my father’s New Year’s glass.
It wasn’t until my senior year at
This time the impetus came from the headmaster of my residential college dormitory, Paul Fry, who decided to offer a wine tasting class to all the graduating college seniors that met twice a week for two hours at a stretch in the evenings.
No other residential college headmaster on campus offered such a course at the time, so I figured this must be worth checking out, especially since participation was optional, non-graded and had the fringe benefit of giving me time to hangout with my friends (a non-inconsequential motivation for a second-semester senior.)
As it turned out, I discovered I really enjoyed learning about and tasting wine with friends.
Our class instructor Elliot Brause was terrific at creating an open environment where we all felt comfortable asking any questions (yes, even the allegedly “dumb” ones). He (rightfully) assumed we knew nothing, and let me and friends ask, and ask away until we had a solid foundation of wine basics like knowing the names of major wine grapes.
I carried this casual and open approach towards wine with me to grad school at
Since learning about wine from experts was too intimidating I decided to learn about wine from other people with little to no basic knowledge, but who were curious — my friends.
As a grad student on financial aid, my wine budget ceiling was (and still is) about $10 a bottle.
The same was true for most of my friends for whom Trader Joe’s served as volume discounter of choice. We’d open a bottle together on a weekend, and try to figure out what we tasted.
After grad school I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area only hours away from the
I knew this was my opportunity to learn about wine from its source. Nearly every other weekend during the summer I’d drive up to wine country with friends and learn about wine first hand from the people who made it.
Because staying in hotels in wine country is so expensive we’d always camp, so weekend camping and visiting wineries with friends formed the major parts of my summers. I spent most of my time tasting wine in northern
Being taught about wine from the woman or man who made it is one of the best ways to learn about wine!
I’m now back on the east coast, and live in
I still discover, learn about, and share wine with friends and mostly on a wine budget of around $10 (ideally under).
Friends and I rarely get dressed up to learn about wine since for us, “how” we come to wine (casually) is as almost as important as “what” we learn about wine.
Wine Casual is a way to share a casual love of wine in a way that is fun, relaxed and most importantly affordable.
Take off your shoes, put up your feet, relax, grab a glass and join me on a stroll to learning about wine the way it should be enjoyed – Wine Casual.com!
-Reggie Solomon
(a.k.a., “reggieCasual”)
July 16th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I like you website. I like the fact that you provide factual information on both of your sites.
July 17th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Many thanks! We plan to provide a lot of resources and posts of interests to folks in a casual way. After all, we have more fun when we keep things casual!
July 26th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I agree. Wine and camping go very well together! The ultimate in wine casual.
April 5th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Hi Reggie,
Thank you for the great day at Yale. We had an incredible time! Thank you for getting us into the wonderful Mory’s club, buying us T-shirts, pencils, and the the very informative tour. We enjoyed all the energy you put into the day you shared with us.
Thank you,
KIPP Academy Fresno
April 5th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
You are all very welcome. It was really great to get the opportunity to meet you all and enjoy a little California sun in winter New Haven.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
[…] So what’s my experience with wine? Read on. […]