You can enjoy wine without being a connoisseur. In fact, these articles are not for the connoisseur. Are you leery of some of the pretentious rituals associated with serving and drinking wine? If you don't care that your Chardonnay is made from "clone 5" grapes, or that the barrels were American oak rather than French, be of good cheer. Help is on the way.

These articles won't have reviews of individual wines. There are many publications that review hundreds of wines every month. While that may be a worthy goal, I don't think I'm up to the job. You may occasionally see a particular wine mentioned if I have had good luck with it and it is a good value, but I'm not going to describe its taste for you. Your opinion of a particular wine is more important to you than mine.

Instead, I'm going to do something that I hope is a little more useful. You'll see a very brief history of wine in this article.

In later articles, we'll talk about buying, storing, and serving wine. How to read a wine label is important, too. Ordering in restaurants - what to look for in various varieties - some desert wines - a couple of unfairly maligned varieties, are all topics you'll see.