For someone who has never tasted wine before, what should they start with?

There's really no specific type or variety to begin your wine education with, but gaining access to a store or winery to try some is a good place to begin. Dave Cedrone, a wine consultant who offers private tasting, basic wine education, etiquette classes, and buying services for the restaurant industry, suggests sampling a few selections from a nearby store. "I would recommend for people who have wine stores near them that they take advantage of tastings. Most wine stores do something like that. They might have limits on how much they are allowed to serve and the hours that they are allowed to do it, but if you can get some free tastings, say you taste two or three red wines and have an expert explain the difference between them, it's really a fast way to learn the difference." Or you may enjoy hosting your own tasting party with family and friends. Cedrone continues, "Another great way is to get a few people together and have everybody buy a bottle and even create a theme event. Get a few close friends or couples together and say 'Tonight we are going to try $10 Merlot and everybody has to bring one bottle.' It's a way for you to be able to try four or even five different wines without spending too much." He also stresses it's important to make sure you're not limiting your options as you're getting to know the many varieties. "If you only taste one bottle of wine you are only getting one flavor and kind of numbing your palate, so it's not really helping you learn much about it. In the beginning stages, if you are trying to develop an understanding of different flavors, the best possible way is to taste as many as you possibly can. Of course that doesn't mean drinking bottle after bottle of wine every night." Once you've been exposed to a few different kinds of wine, you may just surprise yourself at how quickly you learn to tell them apart. Cedrone remembers his own journey into wine expertise. "I was lucky because I was working in a wine store and had the opportunity to taste wine on every shift. We couldn't drink, but we could taste it and spit it out. What I found within a week of working there was that I had developed an unbelievable ability to tell the difference in wines. A week earlier I didn't even know the difference between chardonnay and merlot. Within a week my palate had developed so that I was truly able to pick out wines that I liked and wines I didn't. You really can taste a little bit of strawberry in one wine and a smoky flavor to another."

Of course, if you want to learn about a specific type for a meal you're planning to prepare, consult your local wine store, grocer or even check out a few books from the library. Experimenting with several brands and types of wine from different regions and countries will give you a solid foundation for building your own knowledge repertoire. However, be sure not to spend too much time researching options and focus more on actually trying them. Cedrone suggests "The best way is to taste wine for yourself without knowing anything about it,where it came from, how much it cost, maybe not even whether it's red or white. This is called blind tasting and it can help you heighten your taste senses. If you know something about it, you might make a judgment automatically, you might say 'Well I've never liked California chardonnay, they are too rich for me, they taste like wood.'" And you might be mistaken. So,once you've found a place to taste wine, and learned to tell the difference between whites, reds and the many flavors that make up the end result, be sure not to judge a bottle by its label.