For Christmas last year, I got Wine for Dummies, but I’ve yet to crack that sucker open. Now, I’m more inspired to dust it off as last week I attended two classes—Wine Tasting Deconstructed, beginner and intermediate—both offered through the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant.

I’m still no expert, but now I have a method: 1) swoosh and smell, then ask whether the aroma follows through with the flavor; 2) note the dry-versus-sweet factor, intensity and body; 3) think about the flavor—fruits and woods. In the intermediate class, we learned about the “building blocks of wine” and did what is called a “components tasting,” where there was a control wine that was manipulated in various ways to exaggerate certain aspects of the wine—sugar, alcohol, tannin, etc.

These classes were the perfect balance of education and entertainment (not to mention that we drank a good assortment of expertly selected wine). Now I just need to practice—perhaps over a few glasses at South….