Why I started Far & Low Wine

I did not get into wine the normal way.

Before this, I was an Army officer flying helicopters. Most of my time was spent planning missions and managing training. Wine was not part of that world, at least not in any serious way.

Somewhere along the way, that started to change. It was not one big moment. I started paying attention to what I was drinking, asking more questions, and realizing there was a lot more going on in the glass than I understood.

Part of that shift came from travel. Earlier on, I spent time in Central Asia and Northern Europe studying abroad to learn Russian. It changed how I thought about place, culture, and how people connect through food and drink.

I was drawn to the same idea that Anthony Bourdain talked about so often. Food and beverage are a way to understand a place and the people in it. That idea stayed with me, even before I knew much about wine.

Living in Texas pushed that further. Spending time in the Hill Country and along the Rio Grande around El Paso made wine feel more connected to a place instead of just something on a shelf. That was probably the turning point. Once I started thinking about where wine comes from, it became a lot more interesting and suddenly I found myself traveling to Mosel, Provence, and Porto.

Now I am a graduate student at the Culinary Institute of America studying wine and beverage management, and sitting for my first sommelier exam. The deeper I get into it, the more I realize how much there is to learn. At the same time, I have also realized that wine does not need to be as complicated as it is often made out to be.

Far & Low Wine is a way for me to document all of this as it happens.

The name comes from how I have started to think about wine. On one end, you have geography and climate and all the details that define a place. On the other, you have the more grounded side of it. What it tastes like, who it is for, and whether you actually enjoy drinking it. I am interested in everything in between.

This site will mostly be three things. Writing about places and regions, breaking down some of the fundamentals that make wine easier to understand, and keeping a running record of what I am drinking and learning along the way.

I am not trying to make wine feel more complicated than it already is. If anything, the goal is the opposite. Just to make it a little more approachable, a little more understandable, and a little more connected to real experiences.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.