If only looking at a wine list were as easy as answering the perennial dinner party question “Red or white?” Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple. Achieving any sort of mastery in wine tasting takes practice (and by practice, we mean drinking). To get the ball rolling, here’s a simple guide to what’s what, penned by Jordan Salcito, the beverage director at Momofuku. Might take some studying, but boozy studying is fun studying. Cheers!

My dad’s dad used to make terrible wine in his basement in Waterbury, Connecticut. I never met my grandfather or tasted his homemade booze, but making wine with his father is one of my dad’s favorite memories. It was rooted in Italian tradition (my grandfather moved from Italy to the US on a boat, when he was ten) that then began to inform new traditions in a new home.

My parents drank wine with dinner when I was growing up. They had three young daughters and needed an avenue for mental escape, most likely. But as I got older, wine began to bridge a connection between my father and me, too. Not that I knew anything about it. Until I studied abroad in Florence and discovered other affordable alternatives, I thought Franzia was perfectly acceptable for any type of occasion.

After college, I moved to New York and helped open a restaurant called wd~50. That restaurant changed my life. It’s where I tried absinthe for the first time—before it had become legal again—where I tasted truly great Champagne, and where I started dating a man (now my husband) who co-owned a restaurant that included the country’s largest Burgundy collection. Those experiences inspired a desire to learn more about the restaurant industry, so I enrolled in culinary school, took wine classes and started working at Daniel Boulud’s flagship restaurant on the Upper East Side…

Read the rest at Into The Gloss

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