Sorry for the lofty title, but it’s been a culturally edifying few days here at STBNY. On Sunday I went to the Metropolitan Museum and on Monday, we saw our friend perform in an opera. Delightful experiences both, they got me thinking about — what else? — wine. Specifically, about the importance of paying attention.

Wine, like people, wants to live within a narrow temperature range. I often get questions about the right temperature for wine storage, but the more pressing question for most of us is the ideal temperature for serving wine.

In my welcome post, I mentioned that when given a choice, I prefer to drink organic wines, biodynamic wines, or, at the very least, “sustainable” wines. Here’s why.

Alcohol is the most obvious component of wine — but the hardest to talk about. We’re all familiar with its effects on us, both good and bad, but we’re much less conscious of how alcohol influences the way a wine tastes and feels in our mouth.

Sugar is by far the most misunderstood component of wine. There’s a common belief that sweet wine is bad wine, but the truth is, sweetness in wine isn’t always a bad thing, and sometimes can be a very, very nice thing indeed.

My recent post on Madeira got me thinking about acidity, one of the most under-examined aspects of wine — at least from the point of view of the average wine consumer. Admittedly, I am a little bit obsessed with acidity and all things sour.

I always forget about half bottles of wine. They’re like that former colleague who was kind of soft-spoken but stealthily smart and funny, and now every time you run into her you make a tentative coffee date, but then lose her card (again) in the depths of your bag.

Tannins are probably the trickiest thing to understand in wine. All the other structural components – sugar, alcohol, and acidity – are things we encounter regularly in other foods and drink. So what are tannins?

I’m just back from my trip to Bandol, which was really spectacular. Many more posts to come, including my first attempts at video, but first I had to share some thoughts about French wine tasting.

When you’re tasting wine, it’s tempting to focus on smells and flavors to the exclusion of all else. After all, noting what a wine smells or tastes like lets us compare it to things that are already familiar — “that reminds me of grapefruit!” or “does anyone else taste blackberries?” But it’s just as important to think about a wine’s structural elements, too.