Wine, Oh!

WINE is more difficult to learn about than other things, and there's no getting around the reason why. Its culture hosts the most virulent strain of Euro class snobbery a New Yorker is likely to encounter during a normal day. Wine education can mean working through a sense that if your parents didn't cover this material, you're not supposed to know it.

Things have been changing. Dying is the notion that only those meant to know should know. Wine snobbery will be the last old, European idea smashed by the American market, and the middle-class generation currently in diapers may never experience serious discomfort when choosing wine. Restaurants and wine stores that offer tastings and welcome questions are already the norm, while those that use customers' ignorance as leverage to extract overpayment are fewer and farther between every year. Access to the richest everyday aspect of the aristocratic Good Life is wide open.

If we're all to drink like aristocrats, I say let's be the worldly kind that cultivates refinement-not lazy brats wanting only to be served.

There's another reason to get started, if you haven't yet, up the sheer face of accumulated wine knowledge. It has to do with all those friendly sommeliers and waiters who'll chat about wine tableside, never contracting or correcting. Their job is more difficult if you don't know jack, and even the kindest ones, you can be sure, notice. Especially if you try and fake it.

Andrea Immer's book Great Wine Made Simple would be Exhibit A if some cantankerous guardian of wine knowledge sued to put an injunction on its defrosting. Food Network-regular Immer takes a revolutionary approach, locating the essence of what you need to know in two relatively simple lessons: how to read and how to taste. But reading will only get you so far. The latter lesson is, of course, the fun part.

The best place to conduct it is a wine bar. These places succeed by making sure you leave loving wine more-and loving more wines-than when you came in. Many serve flights (sets of two-ounce tastes of similar or related wines). Flights are aptly named, because side-by-side tasting is the only way to get a palate education off the ground. Happily, another new wine bar has been opening every week or so lately.

I measure them all against Enoteca, which offers 39 reds and whites by the glass, with every one also available as part of a themed flight, and/or by the bottle-across the street at the affiliated wine shop, Vino. Everything is from Italy, so it's easy to focus. The glasses and flights start at $5 and $8.25, respectively, and slope gently toward the rarified heights of Italian wine.

All Italian wine is meant to accompany food. Enoteca's snacks are from the restaurant it's attached to, the venerable I Trulli. Even a nibble of meat or cheese proves enriching. Highlights from a recent visit included cacciatorini salami that had been marinated in red wine, and prosciutto that exemplified how this aged ham is supposed to taste. Then there was a blue-flecked prism of mountain gorgonzola, and Calabresi olives spiced with fennel and garlic. (Meats and cheeses cost $12 for three varieties or $16 for five; olives are $4 for three kinds or $6 for five.)

Meanwhile in the East Village, newcomer In Vino is more concerned with Italian authenticity than with trying to top New York's best wine bar. From its sidewalk barrels in lieu of sign, to the decor referencing medieval catacombs and the bar's casually idiosyncratic menu, the place has so much personality it makes sense to wonder if it'll even survive here (so far it's doing very well). This place, too, has only Italian wine, but In Vino's whole list is Southern Italian-hundreds of wines, but no Chianti or Barolo at all.

Tasting and learning there means a headfirst dive into the dizzying multiplicity of vineyards and varieties unheard of outside Italy. (I'd venture to say inside as well. I once spent 10 days in Sicily, taking notes on much of what I drank, but recognized only a few of In Vino's Sicilia selections.) Servers recommend getting acquainted with aglianico, a full-bodied, dry red of which Lacryma Christi is a commonly found example (though, as I discovered by comparison to what I tried at In Vino, a poor example). Service and snacks both come across two or three notches less carefully considered than at Enoteca, though prices are comparable. No flights, either.

Prices are also about the same at Stonehome wine bar, which is eyebrow-raising, given that this new establishment is out in Ft. Greene. Why wouldn't a neighborhood place in an outer borough be cheaper than one in Manhattan? Stonehome answers the question with the feel of an enclave within an enclave-a room as serene as a Japanese garden, all wood and stone, where local couples spend quality time after they've put their kids to bed. Such atmosphere makes Stonehome a great place to impress a date without seeming to try. Wine-wise, the list is long and diverse, and the proprietor-bartender an exceptionally amiable guide. Other strengths include a flight of Alsatian-style whites (a fine introduction to up-and-coming varieties Gruner Veltliner and Gewurztraminer) and a Northern Italian meat selection that made me want the place to expand into a restaurant.

Much closer to what you'd expect from a neighborhood Brooklyn wine bar is Prospect Heights' Half. Instead of flights, they offer a wide variety of wines by the half bottle-a sampling-friendly package common enough in Europe but rarely seen here. There's a lounge in back and a store that sells cool objects you don't see anywhere else. The snack menu is cool too-it's arranged by region-but the food itself is nothing special. The bar area is loud compared to Stonehome; Half's owners are more likely to be on the next stool chatting about current events with a regular than across the bar fostering patrons' appreciation for Austrian wine. The list skews significantly less expensive than Stonehome's, and is somewhat heavy on the Californians. Not so much to my taste overall, but if I lived near Half, I'd be that regular chatting about current events with the owner before long. I might never drink beer again.