Not long ago my younger brother, who isn’t much of a wine drinker, e-mailed me to ask for help. In honor of the momentous occasion of turning 35, he decided it was time to do some grown-up things. One of those was to finally have something more sophisticated than Grape Nehi or Orange Crush to serve to guests who come for dinner. My brother often has friends over, sometimes to hang out or watch a movie and other times for dinner. Occasionally, one of them will ask for a glass of wine. In order to meet expectations, he decided to stock his wine rack. He was calling me to ask for suggestions, and because my brother is relatively normal and because the parameters of his request seemed practical, I thought my advice to him might be useful to some of my readers as well.
