My favorite wine

Recently I was asked what my favorite wine is....I don't know that I can accurately answer that question.  There is so much wine out there that I appreciate, enjoy and relish.  How could I narrow it down to just the one?  I suppose with more thought that a knee jerk reaction I could say my favorite wine.  For now, I want to showcase a few wines that are tattooed in my mind due to the memory associated with the wine.
The first wine would be Kunde Cabernet 1995.  My employer at that time felt it imperative that I have some way to relate to wine while talking to her customers.  She told me and my friend, Heather, to drink wine.  So, we chose a wine off of our by the glass selection to try.  We bought a few sugar cookies from this local bakery to try with the red wine.  They cookies were delicious.  The wine, well, it was tannic, tart, awful.  Heather and I both walked away with the notion that red wine was not the way to appreciate wine.  Instead we would start over with a more user friendly varietal at our next venture into the wine world.  Welcome chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling and yes, white zinfandel.  We had a brief flirtation with that wine that has staying power still.
Although I didn't embrace cabernet at my first tasting, I did walk away with the knowledge that wine would be in my world.  I enjoyed sampling the different varietals and sharing my finds with friends.  From Fifi's with Heather, to drinking Spanish wines with Sarah, college was full of wine inspired evenings.  My friend, Jean, Sarah and I would get together once a month and make an ethnic extravaganza.  We tried chinese food with plum wine and sake, Italian food with sangiovese and nebbiolo, and tapas (Jean's favorite) with tempranillo.  After college, I relocated to Tempe and worked in a beer bar.  I think that period of my life was cocktail driven.  Wine lingered but I enjoyed more vodka at that point.  I ran into an old roommate of mine at my retail gig and she said--oh, you would be perfect for this position....remember how much wine we drank as roommates?
Denver was home, for me, for ten years.  I bonded over wine with Sara Jo, Pocketsize, Brian, the Goddess, Maghan, Love Jones and a whole cast of characters in my life.  The glue that held most of that together was the appreciation of wine.  Once or twice a week I would meet friends and drink wine.  There was a point where Rapture, Michael David's wine, was a constant in my life.  Big, bold, delicious and found at one of my favorite eateries in Denver.
I will always have a soft spot for Tabali.  It was the last bottle of wine I drank with Brian.  We watched 24, he made chicken lasagna and we drank this incredible value wine from Chile.  It was our last evening together and I will always love that wine.
Currently, I appreciate pinot noirs.  It took awhile to see fully embrace this varietal.  I think I wanted to not like it since it was oversaturating the market.  Silly movie that captivated the nation and created a trend.  I do enjoy that movie however.  What a great flick!
Anyways, I have been gravitating toward pinots lately, nebbiolos and spanish wines.  There is fantastic value in Spanish wines and I have been enjoying them immensely lately.  Tempranillos, monastrells, Riojas, Priorat, albarino, verdejo, vino verdes....Amazing.
I know I should explain why I love these wines more fully.  I'm distracted.  I have yoga, some errands and I wanted to make time to think about my love of wine.  I can expound on this more later.
Til then, cheers!