Ron's Brain

Regarding the wine, use the same techniques you used with beer: Try some and if you like it, try some others that have the same characteristics. If you don't like any of it, drink it until you do like it and then tell people how long it took you to acquire the taste. Another similarity between beer and wine is that cheap wine and cheap beer both taste nasty and for a nominally higher investment you can enjoy nectars of the gods.

Where's the pneumatic jack swallowing that I was promised?

You missed it. I tried to tell them to wait until you showed up, but ther press was there and I was on a timeline and so I just had to do it. Maybe next time.

You can drink it the same night you buy it; only let it age if you're sure it's a great year for that vineyard and you want to save it. With red wine, it's best if you decant it, which essentially means you pour the wine in a vessel (a decanter) and then pour the wine from that to your glass. The reason is that the wine (sediment and all) gets poured into the decanter, the sediment settles at the bottom, and then you pour the wine (sediment-free) into the glass. This isn't really an issue with white wines, which is why white wine glasses are tall/thin and red wine glasses are short/fat.

Wine stores best when the cork stays wet, so assuming you got the cork out in one piece, when you re-cork it, store the bottle on its side.

The 'dry' on the bottle actually means 'not sweet' because wine doesn't sell as well when you put 'sour'. It sounds stupid, but wine is best when color-coded; drink white wine with chicken, fish, or pasta with alfredo (white sauce), red wine with beef or pasta with marinara (red sauce).

So, there's a special wine decanter? I can't just use my Kool-Aid pitcher?

My last experience with wine went something like this:

>drink wine
The bottle is corked.
>open drawer
You open the drawer.
>look drawer
Inside the drawer reveals a myriad of silverware and eating utensils. From between a ladle and some cocktail forks, a wine bottle opener meekly stares toward you.
>get silverware from drawer
You get the silverware.
>open bottle with silverware
You attempt to open the bottle with the silverware and slightly injure yourself in the process. The bottle chuckles and remains steadfast.
>get opener from drawer
You get a wine bottle opener.
>open bottle with opener
The wine bottle is now open.
>drink wine
You drink all of the wine. Moments later, the room begins to spin and you fall face-first down a set of stairs. You are dead.
>restart

No handfuls of wheat?