Pretty much.

I've tried cheap wines and a few stupidly expensive wines and I really disliked each one. It's just not a pleasant taste to me.

Same with champagne. Even expensive champagne is unpleasant.

The concept of wine or alcohol in general going well with certain foods is alien to me too. If I am eating and drinking alcohol at the same time, that warm fuzzy feeling in the head that you get from the alcohol makes my meal much less appealing to me, like it kills my appetite.

Alcohol and food is a case of one or the other to me. Never at the same time.

This is very much my experience. To me, wine takes exactly like fermented grape juice - not in a good way.

I used to grudgingly tolerate sweet whites, but red always tasted like something I shouldn't be putting in my mouth and drinking.

Some people clearly enjoy wine, but how/why baffles me.

I enjoy wine, but I understand where you're coming from.

It turns out that neuroscience has some intriguing things to say about the general concept of 'acquired taste'. For instance, the first time people heard Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring', they rioted. This Radiolab episode [1] discusses an interesting hypothesis that might explain the events of that night, and I strongly suspect the same factors are the reason for similar reactions to many different kinds of stimuli, possibly including your experience with wine.

Anyway, it's a great episode.

[1] http://www.radiolab.org/story/91512-musical-language/

I generally agree with you. I've never been able to stand dry wine.

But there are some sweet wines that are utterly fantastic. I was at place a few weeks ago (Umbra Wines in Grapevine, TX) where I had a moscato d'asti that tasted like I was drinking liquid pixy stix. Ever since then, I keep thinking about going back so I could get a full glass instead of the mini-glass in the flight I had (it was the only wine in the flight I liked... the other two were dry, and I had to force them down, but the cost of the flight was worth it for the liquid pixy stix). Well, that and the mead they had there. The mead was also fantastically sweet.

To illustrate how much human tastes can vary: I don't like sweet drinks (coca cola makes me gag for example), and the idea of liquid pixy stix sounds like torture. (Though I'm now curious as to whether pixy stix would dissolve in water or alcohol, thus eliminating the need for the wine!)

Some of us don't like sweet things. All the best flavours are sharp or sour.

Not me. Put anything sour in the food and I won't eat it unless it's balanced with a lot of sugar. For salad I use just oil and salt - never vinegar or lemon juice, because they taste terrible.

> All the best flavours are sharp or sour.

That's an extremely subjective statement.

The thread is pretty much full of subjective statements, many posed as universal truths.

My contribution: Blueberry wine is delicious.

Do you like beer or coffee? Those two are also pretty harsh and not sweet.

The reason why I like red wine is because I can select ones that are not sweet and I really enjoy non sweet drinks with food. Water is nice and what I usually drink but it is pretty neutral and does not add to the meal the same way wine can do.

However I'm not a fan of alcohol so I have been starting to drink non-alcoholic beers (I like lagers and I think those are fine as non-alcohol) but I have not found a good non-alcoholic red wine yet. I would love to though so if anyone has any recommendations please tell.

> Do you like beer or coffee? Those two are also pretty harsh and not sweet.

As someone who also can't stand dry wines but loves sweet wines, it depends on the beer. My favorite beers are sweet thick malty beers like doppelbock, milk stouts, wee heavy, etc.

There's a semi-local brewery here called 903 that has a Milk & Honey Stout and a Chocolate Milk Stout. Drinking those is like drinking a little bit of heaven.

I do not like coffee, but I'll drink it with sugar if I need the stimulation (although normally I'll just swallow a spoonful of dried instant coffee instead to get it down quick). I'm neutral toward beer, don't really like it, but don't hate it either.

Can't you just buy caffeine pills? Must be cheaper.

I have a very similar experience with wines. I did find one kind of wine that I genuinely enjoy, though, and that's icewine. I think it's because of how much stronger it tastes like, well, grapes rather than alcohol. And also very sweet.

But because of that latter part, it's really more like a liquid dessert.

Do like the Spanish and mix half-n-half with fruit juice or soda. I suggest red wine and orange soda, but many people like to mix with Coca-Cola.