Prestigious Vintage Port is produced only a few times per decade when the Port houses officially “declare a vintage.” Vintage declarations occur only when the producers perceive the harvest is of superior quality—or, when they perceive a superior need to replenish their cash flow. A Vintage Port will always display its year in large numbers on the label; and the supplier will always display its price in large numbers on the shelf.

In its youth, Vintage Port is tannic, fiery and disjointed. This ugly duckling needs at least fifteen to twenty years maturation before its transformation to one of the world’s greatest wines. After lazing around the cellar a couple of decades, Vintage Port will be chock-full of sediment, so be prepared to decant the wine before pouring. Before decanting, leave the bottle upright a few hours, if not days, before opening to let the sediment settle in the base of the bottle. With as little movement as possible, gently remove the cork and slowly pour the port into a decanter or a very clean pitcher. As soon as little flecks of sediment appear in the liquid, stop pouring. About an inch or so of wine should be left in the bottle. The wine can be served directly from the decanter or poured back into its original container once it’s been given a quick rinse.

If like the little white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, you find yourself chanting, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date” then opt for the less fussy LBV. In spite of its tardy name, LBV matures more quickly than Vintage Port therefore developing far less sediment and obviating the need to decant. While LBV lacks the intensely concentrated fruit of Vintage Port, it is a much softer, gentler wine in its youth. Perhaps, like my ever-youthful friend Audrey, it is because LBV is unabashedly relaxed about its lateness label.

Some Port aficionados prefer to serve Port in thimble sized glasses, whereas other fans argue it should be served in bowl-shaped red wine glasses. Either way, with its lush sweetness and warm alcohol (19-22%), this is an after-dinner wine to be sipped slowly. Relax and allow plenty of time to enjoy the wine—once opened it lasts weeks, so have no worries about being late.

Having doggedly clung to the steep hills of France’s northern Rhone Valley through two-millennia of barbarian invasions, debilitating wars and capricious wine trends, a mere 12 hectares (30 acres) remained in the 1960s. Prior to the Roman Empire, no one knows for sure where this sultry, highly perfumed variety originated, though most experts attribute it to the Dalmatian Coast, which is present day Croatia. Roman Emperor Probus purportedly packed his suitcase with Viognier cuttings after a Dalamatian holiday and smuggled them into the Rhone Valley in 281 AD. Evidently he escaped questioning by border patrol — they probably didn’t know how to pronounce Viognier either. Emperor Robus was not the only man to bootleg Viognier. Centuries later Bonny Doon’s colorful winemaker Randall Grahm was hauled into court for running the vines via his suitcase from the Rhone to his California vineyards.

Two Rhone districts produce what is considered the world’s finest expression of Viognier: Condrieu and Chateau-Grillet. With Condrieu (Guigal) you can expect elegant white peach, pear and floral aromatics, somewhat like an amplified Riesling. Wine from Chateau-Grillet is a rarity because only the Chateau-Grillet winery has the right to put this district name on its label. Due to its scarcity and exclusive monopole naming rights, Chateau Grillet has been mistakenly regarded as the finest Viognier in the world. It is a top quality wine, but has not been living up to its reputation – or prices — lately.

Viognier vines are also grown in the neighboring Cote Rotie appellation, which is famed for its Syrah-based wines, not Viognier. Oddly, handfuls of these Viognier clusters are chucked into the fermentation tanks together with the inky, dark-purple Syrah variety. Cote Rotie winemakers are convinced that Viognier softens their Syrah-based wines and increases their complexity. Top Australian producers of Syrah — aka Shiraz — agree, and wines such as D’arenberg’s Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier consistently garners amongst the highest scores from reviewers.

Viognier burst onto the international scene in the 1990’s. Weary of the endless river of Chardonnay, sommeliers and connoisseurs greeted the variety with enthusiasm, especially in California, where Viognier plantings increased from 20 hectares (50 acres) in 1990 to over 800 hectares (2,000 acres) today. Californians were not the only producers to embrace Viognier, it is grown in fifteen other states, as well as Australia, Italy, New Zealand (ie Te Matta Woodthorpe), South Africa (ie Fairview), France (ie Domaine du Chateau d’Eau) and South America.

New world producers, such as California’s Eberle Winery and Cline Cellars or Australia’s Yalumba Y Series loosened the corset on this voluptuous grape, so expect musky fruit, jasmine blossoms and fat, ripe summer peach flavors. Like many of us, Viognier loses its good looks with time, so it is best to drink while youthful and fresh. Oh, and how to pronounce it? Try “vee-ohn-yay” or “vee-oh-nyay.” No one has quite worked it out.

“Red wine is indeed good for your health” affirms cardiothoracic specialist Dr. Michael Hsin. Wine drinkers are not only healthier than non-wine-drinkers, but smarter and psychologically more stable – at least according to a 2001 study at Copenhagen’s Institute of Preventative Medicine.

Even the staid US government has woken up to the health benefits of wine – once the financial impact was made clear. According to a study published by the Health Care Financing Review (a US Department of Health and Human Resources journal), “Seniors who drink moderate amounts of wine – six to 13 glasses a week – are likely to have lower Medicare expenses than non-drinkers.” (Note that’s per week, not per evening). How consumers on Medicare are to fund their weekly intake of Lafite and Latour isn’t discussed in the study.

The good news about wine’s health benefits rolls in regularly. A State University of New York at Stony Brook study claims that drinking three glasses of red wine a day cuts the risk of colorectal cancers by 68 per cent. And scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health say that men with hypertension are 30 per cent less likely to have a heart attack if they drink one or two glasses of wine a day.

The primary explanation of wine’s health effects is due to its source material. Grape skins are loaded with phenolic compounds called flavonoids as well as other antioxidants. These compounds appear to inhibit the formation of blood clots and reduce the artery-clogging propensities of low-density lipids (LDL), the “bad” form of cholesterol. Also found in grape skins is a substance called resveratrol, which seems to inhibit tumour development in numerous cancers. Red wines are considered healthier than white wines due to their extended maceration with grape skins. But why not grab a handful of grapes or a cup of grape juice instead of braving a hangover? In juice, the healthy phenolic compounds are largely degraded due to their exposure to oxygen whereas wine delivers the flavonoids and antioxidants to our bodies in a preserved state. Juice is still heart-helpful, but perhaps not as effective as wine. Fresh grapes and other fruits deliver similar health benefits, but it is difficult to consume them in sufficient quantities to make an impact.

It seems not a week goes by without alarming announcements that Asia is facing a cardiovascular disease epidemic due to increases in obesity, high blood pressure and smoking. These studies are not based on small isolated incidences: findings pooled by the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration www.apcsc.info were based on 600,000 people involved in 43 studies in nine Asian countries. Take heart. According to a 40-year study of 1,373 subjects living in the Dutch town of Zutphen, men who drink a least a half-glass of wine a wine live an average of four years longer than teetotalers. Based on New Year’s Eve’s consumption, most of my wine-guzzling friends should still be belting out “Auld Lang Syne” well into the 2080’s.

Cabernet Franc is mainly known by wine buffs because it one of the five legally permitted grape varieties grown in the famed Bordeaux region. On its own, Cabernet Franc produces wines that are less tannic and less saturated in color than the more famous Cabernet Sauvignon, but these wines rarely get the same attention as Santa Sauvignon.

Too often, Cabernet Franc’s sleigh is laden with disparaging descriptors such as green pepper, vegetal or stemmy, which at times is fair judgment. However, green characteristics emerge in many red grape varieties, including Cabernet Sauvignon, whenever grown in excessively cool climates, under indifferent conditions or when over-cropped. Good quality Cabernet Franc does emanate a slight herbal note, but definitely not an off-putting green pepper or green asparagus aroma.

The best Cabernet Franc wines – and there are many instances of Cabernet Franc leading Santa’s sleigh – are distinctive and complex. Cabernet Franc is grown throughout Bordeaux and in the Medoc section, home to famous properties such as Chateaus Lafite, Latour, Margaux and Mouton Rothschild, it comprises about 15 per cent of a typical vineyard. On the opposite side of the river, on the so-called Bordeaux right-bank, which is further inland, Cabernet Franc thrives in St. Emilion’s cooler, moister soils. The most famous cabernet franc based wine in the world is St. Emilion’s Cheval Blanc, where Santa’s littler helper is 65 per cent of the final blend.

Cabernet thrives in northern France’s Loire Valley, where the chilly air accentuates the variety’s desirable lead pencil and herbal aromas, the finest examples grown on the slopes of the Chinon village. These wines, though of modest color, are well-structured and have excellent aging potential. Loire cabernet franc is rarely oak-aged and is lighter weight than jolly ole Santa, which means it pairs better with holiday poultry, fish and charcuterie.

Cabernet franc thrives better than Cabernet Sauvignon in cool vineyards because it buds and forms grapes earlier. By budding earlier, it is able to take advantage of a long, cool growing season, becoming far riper and therefore less harshly tannic before the winter chill sets in.

If you fancy a quick kiss from Santa’s littler helper – the charming lass, not Homer’s dog – seek out Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley, St. Emillion or Pomerol districts in the Bordeaux region, chilly upstate New York, Italy’s Veneto region or Shaanxi, China.

Gewürztraminer is a buxom stage-queen overseeing a family of grapes that has natural esters, or fragrance compounds, that are reminiscent of flowers. These floral esters, called monoterpenes, give us impressions of rose, orange blossom or honeysuckle, and can also be found in Riesling, Pinot Gris, Viognier and Muscat. Monoterpene esters are at their most effusive in gewürztraminer, which is why it is a wine that some people love and others find too blowsy. All agree, however, gewϋrz is no wall flower. This wine is an extrovert full of personality: lychee, gingerbread, vanilla, grapefruit, smoke, spice and honeysuckle are just a few of the adjectives linked to the grape.

No one has yet established gewϋrz’s ancestral pedigree, but the variety first appeared in the Alto Aldige region of northern Italy during the middle ages, acquiring the stage-name Traminer, presumably taken from the nearby town of Tramin. Thriving in long, cool, but sunny growing seasons, the vine soon made its way into southern Germany’s Pfalz region where it acquired the gewϋrz suffix, which means spicy. Germany’s summers are all too brief for this light-seeking variety, so the vine ultimately settled in sunnier Alsace, the French wine region bordered by Germany’s Rhine River. With enormous body and low acidity, gewϋrz does not thrive in sweltering summer heat; instead gewϋrz yearns for long cool hours in pale-yellow sunlight to develop its flavors.

Because the word gewϋrz means spicy in German, this variety is often misleadingly described as spicy. Don’t be fooled. It has none of the white pepper spice of Austria’s flagship grape Grϋner Veltliner or the black pepper tickle of France’s Syrah. It is not clear what the Germans meant by affixing the word “spice” to the grape’s name, but it does come in handy as a reminder that gewϋrz is an excellent match with spicy food. Dishes with fruit accents or ginger are ideal, such as coconut-based curries or duck a l’orange.

Alsace produces the world’s greatest gewürztraminer, though the grape is grown in most wine regions, including California and New Zealand. Unfortunately gewürztraminer rarely commands top price on shop shelves, so producers often pay little attention to this perfumed zinger. Producers in Alsace, such as Zind Humbrech, Hugel and Trimbach, have figured out how to rein in gewϋrz’s extroverted character and their finest wines have finesse, complexity and elegance. Perhaps behind her bright colors, big hair and exaggerated style, so does Dolly. And with regard to Gewurztraminer, surely she said it best, “I hope people realise that there is a brain underneath the hair and a heart underneath the boobs.”

Although bursting with taste buds, our hapless tongues can detect only four taste sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and a recent discovery, umami. Don’t be too sympathetic. The little devil delights in playing ping pong with these key tastes.

Acidity, also called tartness, is vital to good wine. All fruits, including grapes, have acid balances. It’s the balance of acidity and sweetness that determines whether a drink is refreshing or cloying. Even sweet dessert wines, such as ice wine, require a high degree of acidity. A wine’s acid balance is so important that it, along with sugar content, is one of the criteria evaluated in determining when to harvest the year’s grapes.

While each infinitesimal taste bud is capable of responding to sweet, salty, sour or bitter foods, specific areas of our tongue specialise in detecting these characters. Knowing where your tongue best detects tartness or acidity will help you evaluate wine quality.

To recognise your tongue’s sensitivity to acidity, dip a cotton swap into lemon juice and then touch different parts of your tongue with the swab. Generally people are most sensitive to acidity on the sides of their tongues, near the molars.

The acidity balance of a wine can be described in many ways. One might simply say, “Chateau Citroen is very acidic” or “Chateau Cloying has low acidity.” More fanciful terms used to describe acidic wine might be tart, crisp, lively or nervy. A wine with low acidity could referred to as flat, fat, flabby or oily – adjectives none of us wants to hear.

Usually wines from cool climates are more acidic and refreshing, which makes them terrific to serve with light dishes and seafood. Germany’s Schloss Johannisberger Riesling Kabinett is a light, acidic wine with gentle bubbles to tickle the tongue. Drink this wine with grilled Dover sole.

A hallmark of Italian wines is their crisp, acidic nature. In Italy, grapes are deliberately harvested early to ensure wines are brisk and invigorating. Try Chiaro Pinot Grigio, which is a simple white wine perfect for an outing to Lamma Island.

Marlborough, New Zealand is known for its highly aromatic, yet tart Sauvignon Blanc. Chablis is a cool-climate grape growing outpost in northern Burgundy, France. Grapes have a tough time ripening in Chablis, so the wines are always acidic. Louis Latour produces a good example of a crisp, steely Chablis.

Wines from California’s warmest districts have low acidity levels, resulting in heavier wines. Wente’s Central Coast Chardonnay is from California’s cool coastal vineyards, so it has a fine acid balance, yet is creamy and round in the mouth. Perfect for ping pong.

Rioja’s heyday was in the late 1800’s when its northern neighbor, Bordeaux, found its vineyards plagued by newly imported American vine diseases. Frantic to replenish French wine supplies, Bordeaux winemakers flocked to sleepy Rioja and stimulated a fifty-year wine boom. Rioja has had its ups and downs ever since, but the past twenty years has seen a revival in the region.

Rioja is instantly recognisable by its fragrant oak aromas. This wasn’t always the case. Until Bordeaux winemakers arrived, Spanish vino was stored in pig skins. Not the clever bota, or leather bottle, I used to wear on ski slopes but full-sized pig skins, called borrachas. The borrachas retained the shape of the pig, feet and all, but the skin was reversed, with the pig’s hairy coat on the inside. The interior was rubbed with pitch before filling with wine for storage and transport. Wine dispensed from borrachas was malodorous and fetid, but it must have done the trick as the Spanish word for overindulgence is borracha.

It is no wonder Spain now has a penchant for oak barrels. Rioja is the only European wine region that favors American oak barrels. American oak gives wine a distinctive vanilla flavor—much tastier than olor de borracha.

Riojan producers segment their oak-aged red wines into three classes. The simplest class is called Crianza, which is aged in oak barrels one year before release. Crianza is soft and spicy with juicy red fruit flavors, such as Viña Alarde’s Crianza 2000.

Rioja Reserva is a slightly richer and fuller wine that is aged three years before release and the Gran Reserva is aged a whopping five years before it hits the retail shelves—a winery’s cash flow nightmare.

For a classic Gran Reserva as smooth as a chamois, try Viña Alarde, Gran Reserva. Supple with dried cherries, spice and gentle vanilla flavors, this brick-tinged wine is fantastic.

The main grape used to make Rioja is called Tempranillo. Although not very well known, Tempranillo is one of the most widely grown grapes in the world. It is a dark, thick skinned grape, which ripens early. Presumably its name stems from the Spanish word temprano, or early.

Some winemakers chuck the Rioja classification system altogether and simply label their bottles Tempranillo. Berberana’s Tempranillo is fruity and spicy with no discernable oak flavors.

Although Rioja is adored for its red wines, the region also produces white and rosé wines. Until recently, white wines from the region were oxidised and dull, but the area’s producers have adopted modern winemaking techniques and are now producing fresh aromatic white wines, such as Marqués de Cárceras 2001. Sip it with pig skin – preferably crisply roasted.

As the elegant Serena put it, “Only an idiot made bad wine in 2000.” If you are a Bordeaux winemaker and didn’t make a good 2000, “then you should change jobs.” And she’s right. “When you see good production emerging from petit chateau as well as elite chateau, then you know it’s a great vintage.” On a buying trip at the time with a large USA importer, I remember clearly the frenzy – and our complaints – when the pricy vintage was released to market. Importers battled for tight allocations and prices seemed absurdly stratospheric, all of which now looks sanely genteel after the hype in the ten years that followed. Vintage 2000 – if you can afford it – is available from fine wine merchants and via auction houses, but check provenance carefully. The wines for the Sotheby’s tasting were supplied by Bordeaux Winebank, which prides itself on its ‘Five Star Provenance’, a promises that all wines are ex-chateau (not carted around the world from owner to owner), in original wooden cases (OWC) and securely stored in Bordeaux until time of sale. If you manage to get your hands onto some 2000, you are in for a great ride. The wines are drinkable now, but their vivacious fruit will carry them far into the future. By all means, feel free to pull the cork, but don’t squander your full supply yet!

Pavie, Saint Emilion (1er Grand Cru)
Beloved by Parker and famously denied by Jancis Robinson, this modern take on Bordeaux held its own in this exalted company. Expressive, plumy, bright and vivid with oak hints.

Cheval Blanc, Saint Emilion (1er Grand Cru)
Wonderfully perfumed and fresh, opulent black cherries and violets due to its Cabernet Franc foundation, with a silky texture apparently described by Pierre Lurton as “cashmere tannins”. Slightly smoky hints on finish were a superb adieu to the fragrant fruit.

Palmer, Margaux (3eme Cru)
Bright vivacious, welcoming and juicy, a wine that Serena described as ‘firing on all four cylinders”. An exciting, classic Palmer, though a slight boh-lei tea or dried herb note in the wine was distracting.

Cos d’Estournal, Saint Estephe (2eme Cru)
This property, which is neighbour to Lafite, showed its terroir pedigree, with striking Cabernet Sauvignon fruit, berries and elegant, textbook tannins with what Serena described as a ‘mineral saltiness’.

Leoville Lascases, Saint Julien (2eme Cru)
Neighbour to LaTour, Leoville is regarded by many experts as a defacto ‘1er Cru’ class wine and is oft referred to as a ‘super-second’. Deeply coloured, with dense black fruits, cedary nose and dense rounded tannins, this wine has a long life ahead. As Serena charmingly put it, “a wine for the grandchildren – if you have the inclination to create them.”

Mouton Rothschild (1er Cru)
Coffee hints followed by black current fruit, the Mouton is ripe is rich and full with opulent ‘glossy’ tannins. Stunning wine with immense personality.

Latour (1er Cru)
I’m always uneasy when my favourite is the final glass, but after tasting the flight several times, there is no question Latour was the standout in an almost perfect line-up. Sensuous and seductive with high intensity black current fruit highlighted by lead pencil and floral accents, this is a boundless wine.

Much of our knowledge about ancient drinking habits is due to shapely clay containers once used to store wine. The preserved containers, called amphorae, have been unearthed throughout the Mediterranean region, even in the sea itself, helping us to understand the extent of the ancient wine trade. Early amphorae were sealed with natural resins, such as pine pitch to prevent leakage. The resins inevitably changed the wine’s bouquet and the ancients actually developed a taste for pine-flavored wines. To this day a wine, called Retsina, is made by throwing lumps of pine pitch into fermentation tanks to reproduce the flavor. Retsina is a novelty for novice palates and its dare-you-to-drink-it popularity wreaks havoc with the reputation of high quality Greek wines, but if offered Retsina, do try it.

Glass bottles are the primary means of storing wine these days, though many Greeks bring empty plastic bottles to a winery or roadside vendor to fill for the day’s use. These plastic jugs can also be seen at small wineries and farmer’s markets in France and Australia, which brings a new interpretation to BYOB. Containers may have changed over the centuries, but wine is still a primary part of the Greek meal and is always on the table – somewhat like cell phones in Hong Kong.

Boutari is a good quality wine producer with operations throughout Greece, including the picturesque Santorini Island, which is a hot and arid volcanic crater. It is hard to believe vines can thrive in these conditions, but islanders keep the vines trained low to the ground by winding their long tendrils into circles. Their wreath-like shape protects the vines against the wind, provides shade for the ripening grapes and helps retain moisture. Here, Boutari produces a crisp white wine and from the highly regarded and cooler Naoussa region, Boutari produces a very good quality, medium-bodied red wine with blackberry jam flavors.

Traditional Greek wines are markedly oxidized as though the bottle were left open on the kitchen counter a few days before serving. In classical times wines were difficult to protect from oxidation, or premature aging, due to heat and air exposure. The Trojan heroes gained a taste for oxidized wines and until recently many Greek wines were deliberately exposed to oxygen in order to gain the same effect. The trend in Greece is now toward fresh, clean aromatic wines, and thankfully the old style is being phased out. Most Greek wines are crafted to be drunk within a few years, if not immediately, so do not hold these bottles in the cellar.

The Spartans almost always added water to wine, probably thinning the alcohol for safer chariot driving. Diluted wine was so standard that the ancients believed undiluted wine caused insanity. Many of us have experienced this phenomenon in Lan Kwai Fong. But don’t worry—apparently a glass of diluted wine the next day corrects imbalances in ‘bodily humours’.

Early corkscrews were designed based on a steel worm, or screw, used to extract unspent bullets from muskets and pistols. By the 1800’s, the firms and blacksmiths manufacturing steel worms for muzzle-loading firearms also made corkscrews.

For centuries, wine was stored in wooden barrels and consumed fairly quickly to prevent spoilage. Upon discovery that wine not only survives but evolves and improves in oxygen-tight bottles, new bottle designs emerged to allow easy, horizontal stacking for long term storage. It then became important to drive lengthy corks firmly into the bottles to ensure a leak-proof fit and corkscrews soon became a necessity.

T-shaped corkscrews, with a simple handle and a helical worm were the earliest designs and can still be found in use today. Because it takes 50-100 pounds strength to extract a cork with the T-screw unit, umpteen variations have been devised to ease extraction and – in many cases – to entertain. More than one cheeky corkscrew manufacturer has designed corkscrews capitalizing on the worm’s resemblance to a certain male part. In turn, handle shapes are frequently crafted to resemble a lady’s legs.

The ubiquitous folding, pocket-sized corkscrew seen in most restaurants is affectionately known as the “waiter’s friend” and was designed in 1883 by a German engineer who also added a conveniently concealed cutter to remove the bottle capsule. A few years later the Magic Cork Extractor was patented. Revived in the 1960’s under the name Ah-so, this opener utilizes two flat blades that are eased inside the bottle-neck alongside the cork. The cork is then pulled out of the bottle with a twisting motion. The virtue of the Ah-so is that it doesn’t actually pierce the cork, so there are no accidental cork particles floating in the wine. Its virtue is also its vice as the intact cork can be easily re-inserted into the bottle after filling it with inferior wine. For this reason it is known as the “butler’s friend” – presumably because the butler can extract a glass or two of the boss’s fine Lafite and replace it with inferior red juice made north of Lo Wu.

The levered Screwpull has been the most important advance in corkscrew design as it features a sharply pointed, Teflon-coated worm for easy insertion and extraction. The extremely long worm forces the cork to climb out of the bottle with virtually no effort by the server – an attribute not always appreciated the next morning. Still, a levered Screwpull is an excellent gift for a budding wine aficionado.

Like any device with historic evolution, corkscrews attract an avid circle of collectors as can be seen by the “Virtual Corkscrew Museum” (www.corkscrewmuseum.com) where there are more than thirty ‘rooms’ of corkscrews exhibited by themes such as Aquarium, Armory, Planetarium and Linen Closet. The site even sports a corkscrew sound studio. And if you find the idea of corkscrew sounds stimulating, then you might like to subscribe to their newsletter, “The Weekly Screw.”