101 Ways to Learn About Wine

  1. One reward of entertaining with wine is discovering which techniques work most profitably for you.

    Go to a wine store, buy a bottle of wine and drink it.

  2. Share wine with others and talk about it while drinking it.
  3. Go to your library. Check out a book on wine, preferably one with beautiful photos.
  4. Devise a simple system for keeping track of your wine experiences. Use it.
  5. Review your wine records to keep what you’ve experienced fresh in your mind.
  6. Subscribe to Wine Spectator and read it.
  7. Watch for information about wine in your local newspaper.
  8. Be on the lookout for free wine tasting at big box, food, liquor and wine stores.
  9. Follow wine writers in The Wall Street Journal (Saturday/Sunday edition).
  10. Count the numbers of wineries in your state. See www.wineinstitute.org for help.
  11. Watch for wine in the movie “Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe.”
  12. Visit a winery in your state.
  13. Read the label on your next wine purchase. Be sure you understand all the terms. Repeat with every bottle you buy.
  14. Look for wine items in In-Flight magazines.
  15. Keep your eye peeled for “Wine Trails” when traveling. States you’d never suspect have them.
  16. Read Wine Trials, a fearless critic book. This annual publication conducts methodologically impeccable blind-taste tests to open your eyes to fantastic wine values.
  17. The number of wineries in California has more than quadrupled since 1990. Learn about America’s top wine producer at www.wineinstitute.org
  18. A wine tour of Connecticut will take you to some of the most beautiful areas of the state. Start at www.ctwine.com
  19. www.wineEnthusiast.com. Visit and subscribe to Wine Enthusiast.
  20. Buy Kevin Zraly’s American Wine Guide. Where else could you learn about some of Idaho’s 26 wineries and wineries in the other 49 states?
  21. Befriend someone who knows something about wine. Pay attention to her.
  22. Find a copy of Rand McNally’s A Guide to the Wine Country: California. My well-worn map has given me years of service.
  23. Visit my blog page at www.wineforbusinesspeople.com for postings on wine in business and teachable wine epiphanies and bloopers.
  24. Dip into Fear of Wine: An Introductory Guide to the Grape by Leslie Brenner and Lettie Teague.
  25. Save money. See www.goodwineunder20blogspot.com to find affordable wines.
  26. www.vinography.com is a fun wine blog for industry gossip, scandals, new releases and wine advice on all sorts of topics.
  27. New York State, with 31,000 grape-bearing acres, is America’s second largest wine-producing state. Learn more at: www.newyorkwines.com
  28. Shop your local Barnes & Noble bookstore. Most have a well-stocked wine and spirits shelf.
  29. Sample an issue of Mutineer, a relatively new wine and spirits magazine written for younger drinkers.
  30. To read a food and wine blog with an Italian accent, spend some time at www.vinocibo.com, a blog written by Craig Camp.
  31. Pick a vineyard whose wines you like and join its “Wine Club.” Get to know this vineyard’s wines in depth, year after year. This can be a cornerstone of your wine knowledge.
  32. Blogger alert. Bookmark DrVino.com for interesting wine talk covering wide-ranging topics from the world of wine.
  33. Gain insight into the dynamic wine industry by reading The Wrath of Grapes, by Lewis Perdue.
  34. www.foodandwine.com has many informative online articles that pair food and wine. Valuable reading.
  35. Visit www.winevibe.com to see how much lies behind the simple act of tasting and evaluating wine.
  36. Familiarize yourself with the shape of wine glasses specially designed for specific types of wine. Learn the theory behind the shapes.
  37. Visiting Niagara Falls? Get info on the local wineries at www.niagarawinetrail.com
  38. What is the best color for a wine glass? Get the answer at www.bestwineglass.com
  39. Don’t miss the wine bar at gate A-15 in the DFW airport. The bar pours Texas wine and offers tasty hors d’oeuvres. I regularly schedule business meetings there.
  40. Pick up a copy of Bernard Klem’s delightful How to Talk About Wine.
  41. Take a virtual tour of www.winesnw.com, to size up Oregon, America’s 4th largest producer. The number of wineries in Oregon increased 37% between 2005 and 2009.
  42. The Wild Bunch: Great Wines from Small Producers, by Patrick Matthews, can turn you on to a number of little-known but highly drinkable wines.
  43. Build your wine vocabulary. Go to www.winedefinitions.com for the basics and a glimpse at some of the ways people have fun with wine.
  44. At www.cellarer.com you’ll find a website dedicated to changing the way you cook and eat.
  45. Buy a “Wine-a-Day” desktop calendar and read the information daily.
  46. Want to learn how to taste wines? See www.wine.about.com/od/winebasic1/ht/winetasting.htm for a 15-minute tasting course.
  47. www.learnaboutwine.com is run by wine educator Ian Blackburn. Good place to learn about Southern California wine events and activities.
  48. Watch the movie “Bottle Shock.” It may be the best movie about wine and Alan Rickman is peerless.
  49. Want to navigate the world of wine with confidence and style? Check out Mark Oldman’s book: Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine.
  50. The World Atlas of Wine, by Hugh Johnson is a classic. I loaned my copy to someone decades ago and never saw it again. I won’t make that mistake twice.
  51. Kentucky is the fifth largest wine producer among the states. Read more at: www.kentuckywine.com
  52. Need to look smart fast? 60 Minute Wine Expert is an e-book that can be downloaded in a minute and read in one hour.
  53. A down-to-earth site that adopts the wine education approach that learning wine means never having to sound too serious. www.soyouwanna.com
  54. Make a commitment to meet and talk to a sommelier.
  55. Take a food and wine pairing class. They are offered in many major metro areas.
  56. Did I mention wine bars? They are popping up in most major metro areas and the baristas know a thing or two about wine.
  57. Can wine help you find the meaning of life? Eliot Essman, in his Use Wine to Make Sense of the World, thinks so. Many of his readers do, too (see reviews on amazon.com).
  58. When in the Portland, Oregon airport, check out the shelves of local wines. Bonus: No state sales tax.
  59. Empty coffee table? Cover it with The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia. Billed as a classic reference, it offers a lifetime of reading and reference.
  60. Hear the argument: “Once you have some basic wine knowledge, the way you perceive, taste and purchase wine will change forever.” www.basic-wine-knowledge.com
  61. Holding down the sixth position as a wine producer, the state of Florida reports about 50 wineries in 6 wine regions. See: www.winesearch.com
  62. Journey through Wines of the World, Dorling Kindersley’s gorgeous tour of the world’s wineries, vineyards and labels.
  63. The PBS Series “Uncorked” may be available at your local library. It is great fun.
  64. Get to know independent wine merchants like Laithwaite Wine, which offers a free binder for tasting notes with certain purchases.
  65. www.temeculawines.org Go to Temecula Valley, California. It has more than a dozen wineries and tasting rooms cheek by jowl right on or just off Rancho California Road.
  66. Reading Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover, by Jancis Robinson, is to follow the development of a wine connoisseur.
  67. Here’s a place for people new to wine, where all the basic FAQs are dealt with: www.wineintro.com/basics
  68. www.iowawinetrail.com Visit some of the many wineries in Eastern Iowa near the Mississippi River.
  69. Take The Great Courses® audio-visual DVDThe Everyday Guide to Wine. Get an overview at: www.thegreatcourses.com
  70. Go to: www.newjerseywines.com to check out number seventh-ranked New Jersey’s wineries, from the Delaware Water Gap to Cape May.
  71. www.keukawinetrail.com Finger Lakes, New York boasts three wine trails. The Keuka Lake Wine Trail is the westernmost.
  72. The Seneca Lake Wine Trail lies between Keuka Lake and Cayuga Lake. There are 23 wineries around this lake alone.
  73. www.cayugawine.com The Cayuga Wine Trail, home to more than a dozen wineries, is the easternmost of the Finger Lakes’ wine trails.
  74. Want to make sense of wine labels? Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Wine Label Decoder features lovely maps and label reproductions, plus call-outs for decoding label elements.
  75. On Linked In? There are dozens of wine groups there you can join.
  76. Learn from Fiona Beckett’s short book How to Match Food and Wine. The title says it all.
  77. Subscribe to Food and Wine magazine.
  78. What’s wine writer Eric Asimov saying? Visit http://topics.nytimes.com/reference/timestopics/people/a/eric_asimov/index.htmlto find out.
  79. “Corked, “a “mocumentary” takes a satiric look at the wine industry in Northern California. See the trailer at www.corkedthemovie.com
  80. With 81 wineries in 4 viticultural areas, Michigan is America’s 8th most productive wine-making state.
  81. Check out The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil. It has received more than one hundred reviews on http://www.amazon.com
  82. Advertised as the “snob-free zone,” www.wineloverspage.com offers Robin Garr’s easy to use food-and-wine-matching guide.
  83. Watch the movie “Sideways” and be reminded of the crucial role wine plays in the lives of many people. Besides, it’s hilarious.
  84. Blogger alert: www.wineanorak.com is Jaime Goode’s website, where this UK-wine journalist posts his articles. See his “New-to-Wine” section.
  85. Blogger alert: get to know www.alicefiering.com. Alice is into wine and has much to say on how to appreciate different wines.
  86. Discover what is revealed about people by the way they hold their wineglass.
  87. “For those who want to know wine, from those who do,” check out the Quarterly Review of Wines: www.qrw.com
  88. No wine lover’s trip to Italy should be undertaken without Allessandro Masnaghetti’s wine maps. See www.rarewineco.com for these and other high-end goodies.
  89. Like to try a wine but can’t find it locally? Visit www.wine-searchers.com for access to nearly 5 million offers online.
  90. Wineries in North Carolina have more than doubled since 2005. Read more about America’s 9th largest producer at www.visitncwine.com
  91. Blind taste-test wines at home with friends and family. Discover the truth about how well your taste buds are in tune with your conscious preferences.To learn about using wine when entertaining to help increase sales for your business, contact wine-in-business educator Bill Libby at 203-820-6655.
  92. Track down the documentary “Mondovino” for information on globalization’s impact on different wine growing regions.
  93. The Wine Economist is the blog for people who want insight into the dynamic, global wine market.
  94. Visit www.alawine.com/wine-blog-ranking.html to learn about wine blogs and what wines are most popular right now.
  95. Respond to big promises. ReadWilliams-Sonoma’s The Guide to Wine: “All you need to know to choose and enjoy wine.”
  96. Organize your own gourmet food-and-wine group and meet once a month to try out new pairings.
  97. Virginia has garnered the number 10 slot among wine-producing states. Get the whole story at www.virginiawine.org
  98. Bound for France? Pick up MapEasy’s Guidemap to Loire Valley and experience the magnetic charm these maps exert.
  99. Get The Wine Guide: The essential guide to selecting, storing, and enjoying wine. Editors: Larry Walker and Wink Lorch.
  100. Ohio is ranked number 11 in wine production, bottling more than 1,100,000 gallons annually. Visit www.ohiowines.org
  101. Visit www.wineforbusinesspeople.com to review Bill’s lastest blog postings, updates and information.
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One Response to “101 Ways to Learn About Wine”

  1. kathy griffin October 2, 2014 at 10:29 am #

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