I kind of stumbled into wine.

My first real exposure to wine was while I was on an assignment with the federal government in Chile. I was working for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice at the time, designing and implementing law enforcement training workshops in Latin American and Caribbean countries to support international crime prevention initiatives. Sounds pretty badass right? It was, in fact, a GREAT job!

Since I had lived in Chile in college, my boss put this country under my purview. On my way down to one of our programs in Chile I became extremely ill and ended up in the hospital, delirious and with 104 degree fever! I’ll tell ya, there’s no better time to get sick than when in the care of a great U.S. Embassy abroad, and the staff were amazing. They had called my room to check on me and when I didn’t answer, they came over and found me delirious in bed. They immediately whisked me off to the nearest hospital and good thing they did!

Fast-forward about four days, and the rest of the team came down from the U.S. Of course, what did they want to do? Wine taste, of course! Barely able to put two sentences together, I accompanied them to a vineyard in the Maipo Valley. “I’ll never be able to participate,” I thought. However, five bottles of Merlot later, I was a convert and felt much better.

Honestly, that’s the story.