JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I like a glass of wine at dinner—or two, or two bottles if the company’s worth it (or if the conversation’s dead and you need it to head off a coma). A glass of red every day is said to be good for the health, so as a bonus one feels virtuous. I’m no connoisseur—usually I’ll order the house red— but you don’t have to be an expert to identify watery vinegar from a bottle that was opened a month ago. Return the bottle—in pieces on someone’s head.

The Paul Giammatti character in Sideways made such an impression on me that I can’t order merlot for fear of triggering a rant. Plus I’m suspicious of bottles with plastic “corks” (I’ll drink them anyway) and I can’t bring myself to buy wine in cartons, even if a chef told me they weren’t bad if consumed immediately. (The same chef starts foaming at the mouth if you mention Gato Negro.) It’s always a hoot when you attend cocktails with people in designer outfits name-dropping like crazy and sipping ‘Novellino’. I saw a snooty flier for ‘your one chance to try vintage wines up to 50 years old!’

Occasionally I try something new (unfamiliar) and luck out. My gauge for whether a wine is good is if I feel it in the back of my nose and throat. I don’t know the technical term for that. Jay’s technical terms for wine are “vino-vino” and “agua de pataranta”. (The latter is one of those archaic expressions our mothers used to employ, along with “hotsie-patotsie” and “syoke”. Don’t you love those old movies on Sine Siete where Rogelio de la Rosa turns to Carmen Rosales and says, “Haney, let’s go klaahbing. Halina sa aking Thanderbird,” then they drive down ‘Highway 54’—oops, ‘Dewey Boulevard’—and the neon signs flash across the windshield of his convertible.)

Here’s a good wine snobbery site. If you’re afraid to order wine for fear of exposing your ignorance, pretend you’re ordering a Coke.