Wine Experience

Wine has never been an important or big part of my life. My parents drink it regularly, my dad drinks a glass of red wine every night. When they have friends over, they bring out a few wine bottles for their friends and themselves. Sometimes they order wine when we go out to eat at fancy restaurants. Wine has also been a common Christmas gift from people to my parents over the years. So I've always been exposed to lots of wine, but I've never been a wine drinker myself. I am a college student, and probably not the classiest of them, so the only times I buy wine is when I need something to get drunk off of really quickly for really cheap, and will pick up a bottle of Barefoot for myself and a friend. 
My parents will always let me taste whatever they have in their glass if I ask, but for the most part it's not something I enjoy, especially red wine. The taste is too bitter and dry for my liking. However, I just recently tried a Sangria that I really enjoyed. I'm not even sure if that counts as red wine though. I really know nothing about wine at all. My father prefers red wine, while my mother prefers white. There have only been a few white wines that I've tried from her glass that I've actually enjoyed, such as Reisling and Moscato. 
The only time I've ever been to a wine/food pairing is when I visited Williamsburg, Va with my parents and we went to the Cheese Shop. It was very obvious that I had know idea what I was doing when the lady behind the counter asked me what I wanted. I was blunt with her, and told her how much of an amateur I was, so she just asked me what I liked. I told her sweet white wine, so she gave me a glass of Reisling and five different cheeses with crackers to eat with my wine. I don't remember any of the cheeses, a few were goat cheeses, but they went really well together and the experience was really cool and made me feel cultured. I'd definitely do it again. 
I really just want to become more cultured from taking this course. I want to be able to appreciate wine like others do, and have some knowledge on what is 'good' and 'bad', and also help me figure out my taste preferences. Hopefully I'll be that person who goes out with their college friends to Olive Garden and asks for the wine menu and actually knows what to order.