This is a huge topic, and probably one I shouldn't address until after I've had my caffiene.

That said, the main thing to remember about wine is that it is NOT A COCKTAIL. Have it with food. I know it sounds silly, but trust me. That Cabernet you mention, for example: I don't know that particular winery, but if you try a taste by itself, and then try it with, say, a steak, I think you'll see a difference.

There are all sorts of guidelines for pairing wines with food, the most basic of which I'm sure you've heard - white with chicken and fish, red with "meat", which is code for beef. That's a good way to start out, but in the end, it's really what you like that counts. Pinot Noir can be really nice with chicken.

When I wake up a little more, I'll see if I can't find some sites to point you toward.

First, I am emphatically not knowledgeable about wine, but I know how I, a wine dummy, enjoy it.

Try it with food, not alone. If I'm having wine not with dinner, I like to have a tiny tray of different things to try with it: a pile of dried cherries or cranberries, a handful of nuts, a small block or smear of cheese, some flatbread. Some wines want to be served with something fatty and unctuous, some want to be with a tart or sweet food, some work well with nutty flavors. This is a simple way to play with the flavors.

I worked in the wine business for about 8 years after college, where I studied winemaking. I would say that no, it's not all hype. Some people get a lot of pleasure from the flavors, especially when paired with food. Others don't. If you don't, it's nothing to worry about. I think part of the problem is that we're not brought up with a language for flavor. Kids learn all kinds of visual language like what colors are what, but even the most basic flavors aren't learned. One of the most common mistakes is confusing bitter with sour. I don't mean language in terms of being able to talk about it with others, but rather being able to identify the flavors in your own mind. So instead of "wow, this tastes like wine", you start to see "hmm, I like this cherry flavor in this wine". It really is so much more than just the alcohol. It really is a food. Some people don't get reading books, others don't get good food.

As far as health benefits go, if you're looking at the benefit of ethanol on hypertension, then if you don't enjoy wine, you're better off having a shot of vodka with your meal. Good vodka will be a more pure source of ethanol without all the other higher alcohols and secondary compounds in wine or other alcohol sources.

The about.com page on wine tasting is a pretty good primer. If you don’t want to deal with the multiple pop-ups, here’s what it says:

Learning how to taste wines is a straightforward adventure that will deepen your appreciation for both wines and winemakers. Look, smell and taste - starting with your basic senses and expanding from there you will learn how to taste wines like the pros in no time!

Look Pour a glass of wine into a suitable wine glass. Then take a good look at the wine. What color is it? Look beyond red, white or blush. If it's a red wine is the color maroon, purple, ruby, garnet, red or even brownish. If it's a white wine is it clear, straw-like, golden, light green, pale yellow or brown in appearance?

Still Looking. Move on to the wine's opacity. Is the wine clear, cloudy, transparent or opaque? Tilt your glass a bit, give it a little swirl - look again, you are looking at color, clarity, brilliance (sounds like you're finding the perfect diamond!) - is there sediment, bits of cork or any other floating bits? An older red wine will be more translucent than younger red wines.

Smell Our sense of smell is critical in properly analyzing a glass of wine. To get a good impression of your wine's aroma, gently swirl your glass (this will enhance the wine's natural aromas) and then take a quick whiff to gain a first impression.

Still Smelling. Now stick your nose down into the glass and take a deep inhale through your nose. What are your second impressions? Do you smell oak, berry, flowers, vanilla or citrus? A wine's aroma is an excellent indicator of its quality and unique characteristics. Gently swirl the wine and let the aromas mix and mingle, and sniff again.

Taste Finally, take a taste. Start with a small sip and let it roll around your tongue. There are three stages of taste:

Taste - After gathering your initial impression of the wine, allow a small breath of air in through your lips and allow the wine to mingle with the air (called swirling). This will allow you to taste flavors more fully (even if you look or sound a bit funny). What do you taste? Reds will often have berry, woody and bell pepper tastes. White wines will often have apple, floral or citrus flavors associated with them.

Initial Taste - This is your first impression of the wine's components and flavors.

Finish - The wine's finish is how long the flavor lasts after it is swallowed. Did it last several seconds? Was it light-bodied (like water) or full-bodied (like the consistency of milk)?

After you have taken the time to taste your wine, you might record some of your impressions. Did you like the wine overall? Does it taste better with cheese, bread or a heavy meal? Will you buy it again? If so, jot the wine's name, producer and year down for future reference.

As mentioned above, most wine is at its best when quaffed with food.

Also, keep in mind that the "taste" of a wine HAPPENS OVER TIME -- good wine has a flavor with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Notice how it tastes at different places on your tongue -- the tip of the tongue senses sweet, the sides bitter, and the back savory (that's a gross generalization, of course). So a sip of wine will taste one way in the front of your mouth and a different way in the back. (When you hear wine snobs talk about "tannins" or "oakiness", what they mean is that puckering, almost sour woodiness on the sides of your tongue.) There's a whole snooty vocabulary to describe these flavors, ignore them. Drink whatever you think tastes good.

The reason that good wine is made from grapes is that grapes are one of the (only? I dunno) fruits that contain ALL the possible flavinoids and fiddly bits that constitute flavors in other fruits: that's why wine can taste like grapefruit, plum, cherry, you name it -- it's up to the vintner to get the wine to express those flavors.

You want to knock your oenological socks off? Get a nice soft pinot noir, maybe an Oregon vintage (I like Morgan Vineyards, your local wine shop employee can suggest something) and a slice of plain cheesecake. Sip the wine, and try to hold that taste in your mind. Take a sip of water. Now nibble the cheesecake, and sip the wine again. KAPOW! It's totally different! The wine is combining with the fats in the cheesecake and the two are dancing the tango on your taste buds!

If you want to learn to taste wine, start with simple wines -- that's why I recommend a pinot noir. There's a huge variation in them, and blah blah blah region and and blah blah blah microclimate and blah blah blah terroire, but they have relatively simple flavor profiles that are easy for a n00b to discern. The reason that cabernet tastes like all the other cabs is that cabs are some of the biggest and most complex wines out there -- you won't be able to pick the flavors apart until your palate has some base flavors to work from.

Don't be afraid to buy the book "Wine For Dummies" -- I spent some time teaching wine classes to waitstaff at various restaurants, and I found it to be one of the more accessible and readable resources I used in those classes.

Don't be afraid of non-French/non-California wines -- Italian reds are generally cheap, have strong and simple flavor profiles, and are made for drinking with food. (Hint: how to instantly tell a good chianti: when you open the bottle, it should smell like freshly-turned earth. The better the chianti, the more it'll smell like dirt!)

The key to understanding wine is to be able to remember flavors, so that you can recognize them in different combinations when you taste them again in the context of another wine.

*faves BOP a gazillion times*

y'know I was gonna come in this thread and attempt to say something profound, but yeah, what he said.

Well said, BOP. There's a lot of stuff there that applies to tasting in general, too--whether it's cheese, beer, chocolate, coffee, tea, etc.

I saw Alpana Singh talk a few months ago - she's the youngest Master Sommelier in the world and also one of only about a dozen women Master Sommeliers. (She also hosts a cool restaurant review show in Chicago called Check, Please!).

These are my notes from that talk that I had posted in my livejournal the next day - I found it super helpful for pairing wine with food.

Alpana says that all wine (with some exceptions of course) can be placed into one of six categories. If you understand these categories, you can understand most wine and how to pair it with food. Here are my half-remembered notes.

Whites
Light whites - e.g., pinot grigio - light in color; tend to taste like green fruits (green apples, green tomatoes, grapefruit, etc); tart or citrusy; dry (not sweet); foods that taste good with a squeeze of lemon will taste good with these wines - like fish, etc.
Sweet whites - e.g., riesling - also fruity but obviously sweet; pair with salty foods to get that salty-sweet combo, or hot-spicy foods to cool down the heat.
Heavy whites - e.g., chardonnay - dark and buttery in color and flavor; pair with things that would taste good with butter.

Reds
Light reds - e.g., pinot noir - lighter in color because they come from thin-skinned grapes; tend to taste like red fruits (strawberries, cherries, red apples, pomegranates, etc.); pair with things that taste good with red fruits. A classic pairing is with duck for example (just like you'd have a cherry sauce with duck). Light reds are good as a bridge - if your group wants to buy a bottle but everyone is eating something different, chances are a pinot noir will taste good with everything.
Spicy reds - e.g., syrah - medium in color; have spiced flavors like cracked pepper, cloves, etc.; pair with heavily spiced (but not necessarily hot-spicy) foods like a peppercorn-crusted filet. The spicy reds also taste good with long-roasted foods like osso bucco or pot roast because you often use a spicy red in making them.
Heavy reds - e.g., cabernet - very dark in color because they come from thick skinned grapes; tend to taste like very dark inky colored fruits (blueberries, blackberries, purple plums); "chewy," therefore pair with chewy foods like steak.

I really enjoyed learning this. Alpana shared that her personal philosophy about wine is that it should be an everyday food. It shouldn't be on this pedestal where people don't feel worthy or knowledgeable about it and are scared of it. Also, you like what you like and that's ok. If you don't like a wine rated as a 98 by some sommelier, it doesn't mean you're broken or you don't get it. It could be, in her words, that "he's a Pepsi person and you're a Coke person." If you do want to really get into wines you have to practice so your brain gets better at associating/identifying the smells and flavors.

I agree with the others here: it's certainly not all hype, and wine is one of those things that offers up infinite subtle variety, IF you can taste it and IF it interests you. If you don't enjoy it, it's no big deal, though.

At the same time, there is a lot of hype surrounding wine, and its association with people of wealth who are seeking to be seen as people of taste guarantees that there is a lot of nonsense built up around it. But that's no reason not to like it in and for itself - you don't have to buy $150 bottles or even $20 bottles to enjoy wine and think it's delicious and interesting.

In some ways, wine is no different from any other food that contains fermented organic compounds. Coffee, chocolate, cheese, whiskey, beer, cured meats, breads, and olives all come to mind as other examples of food in which one basic ingredient is manipulated by humans and by nature and ends up expressing its essence in endlessly varied ways. If you enjoy tasting stuff, and like variety, or like knowing about how processes produce results, comparitive tasting is totally interesting no matter what the food or beverage.

The other aspect of wine that can be fun is history and regionality. Knowing about the cultures and climates that produce different wines takes you on a little vicarious trip around the world.

Have you ever seen Sideways? That movie does a great job of juxtaposing the silliness of high-end wine culture with the seriousness of appreciating it as a remarkable product of culture. I love when the female lead is asked what she likes about wine, and she describes how when she opens a bottle and tastes it she can taste the weather of that year, the soil, the type of grapes, how much sun there was, what the grower did...to a certain extent, that's not BS. Wine is an experience of time, bottled.

I try to enjoy wine with interest but while avoiding the atmosphere of hype and grandstanding. A lot of that is plain old 20th century consumerism. Though wine can be really labored over and carefully crafted and expensive sometimes, wine has also been a table beverage of peasants and farmers and the working class for milennia. If it's good enough for them it's good enough for me.

Slainte!

The only thing I know about wine is that a plate of beans has got nothing on it in the overthinking department.

I'm not a wine snob or connoisseur, but I can tell a difference between a decent bottle and a cheap bottle. (Can't tell much difference between decent and OMG stellar.)

Crane Lake is, in my grocery store, $3.99.

All the advice/edification in this thread is great, but I suspect that, you know, there's yer trouble.

but I can tell a difference between a decent bottle and a cheap bottle.

I agree with that, but my first revelation about winetasting came while drinking a cheap bottle of red zin that my guest had picked up at a gas station on the way over.

We tried it with some goat cheese and nuts while dinner cooked, and our jaws dropped. It was tangy but buttery with a peppery finish, and I suddenly realized that all the verbiage winetasters use wasn't just pretense.

There's another level to it, though: really fantastic glasses can make a decent bottle taste like a very good bottle. Shortly after my mother invested in expensive glasses, my oenophile brother remarked "Wow --- these glasses add about $20 to the bottle," meaning, of course, that a $20 bottle of wine now tastes like a $40 bottle: an appreciable difference.

Me, I'd rather drink inexpensive wine from good glasses than quite good wine from thick-rimmed glasses with small capacity.

I understand that wine isn't all about the hype and I've tried several different kinds. I still don't get it. I know part, if not all, of my problem is not liking the taste of alcohol.

Mixed drinks for instance. I don't like the taste of hard liquor but mix it up into something that doesn't taste of alcohol (margaritas, mojitos, long island ice teas, etc.) and I'm good to go.

Find me a wine that doesn't taste of alcohol and I'm sure I'd be a happy camper. Maybe I should stick to grape juice.

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I had a little emergency to attend to just after I posted, so I couldn't monitor the thread as it went along. You've given me lots to read and consider.

I probably have missed the wine/food connection. I'll have to pay more attention to that aspect. It's not that I don't like wine, I'm just not seeing what all the fuss is about.

plate of beans has got nothing on it in the overthinking department

Yes!

The better the chianti, the more it'll smell like dirt!

This reminded me of the Northern Exposure episode where they have to replace an expensive bottle of wine with a cheap one, with a few things added.

Crane Lake is, in my grocery store, $3.99.

Yes, perhaps. But in the past, when money wasn't such a concern to me, I've spent much more, with little difference in the results. Nowadays I'm on kind of a tight budget.

Have you ever seen Sideways?

Yes, and like wine, I thought it was OK, pretty good, but also perhaps not worth the fuss it generated. But...

describes how when she opens a bottle and tastes it she can taste the weather of that year, the soil, the type of grapes, how much sun there was, what the grower did...to a certain extent, that's not BS. Wine is an experience of time, bottled.

Yes, that's the kind of wine experience I'd like to have, but totally seem to miss. Perhaps I haven't given it enough time, or had it juxtaposed with the right food, or perhaps not spent enough on it. But I have a feeling it's a lost cause on me.

I have the idea that red wine's health benefits go beyond just the alcohol: antioxidants and such. I've also read lately about dark chocolate's health benefits. I've had no problems at all enjoying that, except I tend to overindulge...

I've been making my own for about 5 years, and I've come to learn a great deal about wine. I usually make about 25 bottles at a time, and it's fascinating to try the very same wine in different situations--with meat, with chocolate, with cheese, as soon as it's bottled, at one month, at one year, at three years, things like that. I take careful notes, so I'm starting to be able to have some idea of how the wine will taste at the very beginning of the process, when it's just a bunch of juice in a bucket. It's really helped me to pick up on the subtleties.

My experience of wine is that, no matter how cheap or expensive, it all tastes the same coming back up.

We were on a wine kick for a while. But I am really particular about flavor - like deborah, I don't like a strong alcohol taste. I did find a wine I like, from a small winery in Pennsylvania called Allegro. Their Brogue Blush is fruity, with no aftertaste. It's the first wine we've had that I've actually reached for again and again.

One thing some friends of mine and I did that you might enjoy was we founded a wine group that met monthly. We'd get three bottles, either all reds or all whites but different varietals, and we'd do a blind tasting, spit bucket and all (of course we'd end the night getting fairly sloshed). We'd sample a couple of sips of each and compare notes on what flavors we could discern, give each an "out of ten" rating. You REALLY grasp the differences between varietals when you're tasting them back to back, and you begin to develop a more sensitive palate after just a couple of meetings. You'll build a vocabulary, and you'll find yourself developing a real love of the stuff.

I have the same thing with beers and whiskey as well, but that mostly came from drinking a whole goddamn lot of beer and whiskey.