Today Is the 40th Anniversary of My First Newspaper Wine Column

Have I wasted my life?

Yes, I was 39 years old, didn’t know nearly as much about wine as I thought I did — while actually being aware of huge gaps in my knowledge — and had no idea of the monumental changes ahead of me. I was teaching English at a small college in Mississippi, about an hour’s drive south of Memphis, and had been seriously reading about and tasting wine for a …