Add a Wine to Your List of Favorites

As if an evening of tasting good wine weren't rewarding enough, you have also performed valuable research into your own wine preferences. The next time you buy a bottle or order in a restaurant, youÜll be prepared to make a well-informed choice.

• Sometimes, you'll find a wine that you like very much. Buy as much as you dare! Go so far as to try to buy bottles from the same case, or cases that arrived at the store at the same time. Wine can change from case to case, especially if it's been mishandled, and there's a good chance that a popular wine will sell out quickly.

• There are several products on the market to preserve wine once the bottle has been opened. The two most effective seem to be the cans of inert gases that settle over the surface of the wine in the bottle, and the vacuum pumps that expel most of the air from a bottle and seal it with a rubber stop. Both of them work on the principle that wine changes character as it is exposed to air, and minimizing exposure will slow that process.

On storage: Certain wines improve with age. Others do not. The amount of tannin in the wine is one indicator of whether or not it will age well. Tannic qualities often become less apparent with age, and a bottle that you would like to keep for some years should have enough of them to start with, otherwise it won't develop much more character, and will "die" rather quickly.

Wine Tasting Party