There can be few pleasures as simple as splitting a bottle of wine with friends. It’s difficult to pinpoint the source of the romanticism, but it could be the systematic pouring from the bottle, the rhythmic swirling of the wine, or the life implicit in something that has to breathe. At the same time, wine can be damn intimidating. There are people who babble on about the 2003 this and how the shiraz from this region just simply can’t compare to the one from that region.

Newsstand: November 23, 2009