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Montrachet glass, a Grüner Veltliner glass—there’s a specific Riedel glass for every major grape variety (and some not-so-major) and virtually every major wine region. The Riedels contend that their glasses are designed to show each particular wine in the most flattering light, and I’m sure that’s true. But do you really need an Oregon Pinot Noir glass or a Brunello di Montalcino stem? With all due respect to the Riedels, I’d say no. When it comes to the question of stemware, I’ve become a fanatical minimalist. In fact, I’ve whittled myself down to just two types of glasses, Bordeaux stems and Burgundy stems. The latter I use exclusively for red Burgundies and other Pinot Noirs, and everything else goes in a Bordeaux glass, including white wines and sparkling wines. (Champagne flutes are nice to look at and hold, but a wider glass does a better job of bringing out the aromatics; I’ve noticed that Champagne producers almost never use Champagne flutes during tastings.) I also don’t use Riedel glasses, because they can shatter easily and are really expensive. Instead I use Spiegelau glasses; it is a line of stemware that is owned by the Riedels, and it offers excellent glasses that are quite inexpensive—$7 or $8 per stem, which is cheap enough to break.
    With regard to that other indispensable tool, the corkscrew, my advice is similar: the $3 variety available at your local package store is all you really need. Yes, there are much more elaborate corkscrews on the market, but unless you are regularly opening eighty-year-old wines, why bother? The simple waiter’s corkscrew, as it is known, will do just fine. Unless money is no object, don’t go crazy with wine accessories. Buy only what you really need, keep it inexpensive, and spend any extra money on wine.
    YOU’RE THE WINE GUY—YOU PICK THE WINE
    It is normally the case that when a group that includes a wine enthusiast goes out to a restaurant, the wine guy will be asked to order the wines—and in truth most oenophiles want and expect to be handed the wine list (though it’s best if they are polite and refrain from just grabbing it). But once the list is in hand, it can be a real burden, and not just because it might weigh a lot. If the wine guy isn’t picking up the tab for the table, choosing the wines can be tricky. It’s especially challenging if the oenophile is a guest. The desire to drink something compelling must be weighed against budgetary considerations and the need to be tactful. Sadly, being given the wine list does not usually give you carte blanche to order whatever you wish, and there is nothing that can spoil a good evening quite like an unexpected $1,500 wine bill. So how to negotiate this delicate matter? Matt Kramer of the Wine Spectator has what I think is a smart solution: he looks for inexpensive off-beat wines, pleasant obscurities that the rest of the table will probably be unfamiliar with, that might win a convert or two, and that won’t cause any fainting spells when the check arrives.
    W HAT’S A G OOD P ALATE, AND H OW D O
Y OU K NOW I F Y OU H AVE O NE?
    Spend an evening with a group of wine obsessives and there’s an excellent chance that at some point you will hear them assessing the strengths and weaknesses of other people’s palates. It could be a major critic, a friend, a colleague, a family member. Palate is wine-geek shorthand for tasting chops—for the quality of one’s judgments about wine. The ultimate tribute that can be paid an oenophile is to have it be said that he or she possesses a “great palate.” It is like telling an art enthusiast that he has an unerring eye or a music buff that she has a flawless ear.
    But wait—isn’t wine appreciation a completely subjective exercise, and if so, who’s to say that someone has a superior or inferior palate? That’s a good question, and the short, glib answer is