[Urbane Guerrilla]

Hamburger Helper? Two Buck Chuck -- Charles Shaw Cabernet.

Pleasant wines to learn on... hmm. Try any Bordeaux if you're buying French. "Meritage" -- a made-up word -- is the Californian idea of how to pronounce "Bordeaux." Similar, and tasty. A budget port, whatever's on special at Trader Joe's on the port shelves. Rhine wines, German whites, run to sweet and fruity. Good with sausage, good with fruit and cheese.

Any wine that isn't expensive is darn good to cook with. An expensive wine should be drunk from the glass, not hidden in food.

There's an awful lot of wine-bore cultiness that goes on, but frankly just ignore it. Let your own taste be your guide; for one thing it will evolve over the next ten years anyway. Drink those wines you like; the ones you don't take to can best go all the more to those who do appreciate them. Cook with the wines you like to drink.

Red wines age well when you've got a dark, preferably rather cool, undisturbed place to cellar them in, whenever that may be. Wines that age well are tannic, and reds are far more tannic than whites, which mainly should be drunk young as they won't age and smooth out very much more once in the bottle. Reds with a tannic content will slowly react in a bottle to become less puckery, smoother, and full of little complex flavor notes. Ravenswood wines, all mid-priced, cellar very handsomely. If you keep one resting for four or five years, it comes up nicely. I like doing that with their Merlot. I've moved rather from Merlots to Cabernets of late; there are about a bajillion Cabs, but they're just about always fun.