Flavors

Take a small sip of your wine, swish it around, and pretend to spit it out in your cup. Do not actually spit it out. You will not be able to make it through an entire evening with oenophiles otherwise.

Umami is a hot topic in the food world these days. One of of five distinctive tastes -- the others are salt, sweet, sour, and bitter -- it packs a wallop when it hits the tongue.

Why do we need experts (and I am one of those) to teach, tell and advise us on what wine tastes like? So we won't dribble it down our lips and bibs and never have a clue as to what we are tasting?