Some wine, a corkscrew and glasses.

A fellow wine lover (or at least someone interested in sharing the winetasting experience).

10 minutes to become familiar with the terms, and 20 minutes to a few hours to taste and discover what characteristics you can pick out.

2torial #0585: Learn2 Speak Wine Yo hablo vino! Perhaps you've enjoyed wine on some occasions and disliked it on others. Or maybe you've heard wine enthusiaists discuss wine and you understood little of their conversation. If so, this 2torial can lead you out of the darkness of wine confusion. It's best read in conjunction with our other wine-related 2torials: Choose Wine, Open and Serve Wine and Champagne and Hold a Wine Tasting. Since the taste of a wine is a subjective experience, a wide variety of terms have developed to describe it. Some people might consider this as an example of elitist snobbery, but actually these terms are a useful and enjoyable way to explain what you are tasting. You might feel a bit self-conscious (if not pretentious) the first time you start talking about "a leggy, round Cabernet with a okummy finish," but you'll adjust. As long as you're legitimately trying to convey your winetasting sensations, you're not a snob. Wine is generally judged on its color, its smell and its taste. Speaking about wine is merely an attempt to convey your opinion about these characteristics in descriptive terms. Many of those terms have become widely accepted, and will pop up in most wine conversations. Some are fairly straightforward, while others are more obscure and require explanation. Interestingly, you'll find that many terms are applicable for more than one aspect of wine. Step 1