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When many people hear “Beaujolais,” chances are they think of Beaujolais Nouveau, an inexpensive, often mediocre wine that is shoved down their throats every November. The problem with Nouveau, in addition to the fact that it usually doesn’t taste very good, is that it overshadows the really good wine that comes from Beaujolais.

In my mind (and my household) there are two types of cooks: recipe followers and improvisers. I fall squarely into the former category. There are, however, a few exceptions.

My white wine reunion was thwarted! I arrived at the airport two-and-a-half hours in advance — ah, LaGuardia on summer Friday afternoons — only to learn that our flight to Richmond was cancelled due to Hurricane Bill.

My contribution to our beach weekend, aside from some very competent food styling work for this tomato tart, was a selection of Bandol. Whenever I have a vineyard vacation planned, like next month’s trip to Provence, I like to test-drive some wines beforehand.

I haven’t made anything from a New York Times recipe in ages. Blame the inexorable march away from print and to the Internet, if you must — I skim the Wednesday food section online at work, when I only have time to focus on the nitty-gritty (restaurant reviews and wine). But for some reason last week the tomato tart recipe caught my eye.

I made a tactical error with my vacation planning this year: because of work and other obligations, we decided to forego an August getaway in favor of a late September trip. Right now I’m seriously regretting that choice. My office is a ghost town, New York is sticky as all get-out, and Paul and I feel like the only suckers left in the city. However, there is one big silver lining here: end of September is right around harvest time in Bandol, a town in Provence where we’ll be spending part of vacation.

When I teach tasting classes, I usually bring varietal wines — that is, wines that are made from a single grape, and labeled as such. I do this for a few reasons.

I love Lagrein, especially in the middle of the summer. When it’s sticky and sweaty out, I imagine that I’m drinking this wine after a long hike through the Dolomites in Alto Adige, where this wine hails from.

I had a professor in grad school who never failed to point out the most glaringly obvious themes in whatever play we were reading and treat them like trenchant insights — gee, Tennessee Williams’ homosexuality …