Have you ever made love in a vineyard or drunk a first growth from a plastic cup in a dodgy motel?
For this month's issue of Decanter, Margaret Rand has travelled the world to compile a checklist of the 40 things every wine lover should do.
According to Rand, being a wine lover isn't about vintages, prices and rarity, it should be more fun that.
'It's to be measured in bad bottles as well as good ones; in dropped glasses, in grape skins under the fingernails, in journeys and memories,' she says.
Among her list of must-dos are to drink wine from your birth year, take a wine tour on a two-humped camel in McLaren Vale and sabre a bottle of Champagne – for this you need a good backhand, a sabre and Rand suggests trying it at someone else's house the first time.
The fitness fanatics among you may want to run the Médoc marathon, which has many wine and oyster stops en route or why not get your hands, well your feet, dirty treading Port grapes in a lagar?
From the simple, like learning to decant, to the sublime, such as drinking Madeira from the time period Marie Antoinette was on the throne of France, make sure you try at least one of Decanter's 40 Things Every Lover Should Do.
Here at decanter.com, we'd like to know if you have any other suggestions that wine lovers simply must do, or perhaps you have some interesting stories to share, email us at news@decanter.com.
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