New year, new beginnings. New to wine? If so, it’s time to bone up on what makes a wine what it is.

We’re not talking about the kind of wine know-how when you learn that some French wine sold at auction for $100,000 a case, or read that a Koch bottle is the centerpiece of a lawsuit, or that a pinot noir (as I read the other day) had “aromas of black cherries and saucy plums, add in some cola, cinnamon and clove, some smoke and earth I also get some charcoal pit, roasted nuts, loamy soil and spice elements (maybe clove and black licorice).” No, I’m referring to a simple curiosity about wine that makes you come to your own conclusions.

START WITH YOU

I wrote a column several years ago rating bag-in-box wines; you know, three liters of Franzia Crisp White for $11.

An older fellow wrote me that he had never bought any wine before, but he “couldn’t go wrong at least giving it a go at that price.”

Where in wine is this guy now? I have no idea. He may be back to amaretto sours, or he’s over at the wine auction house Hart Davis Hart bidding on Burgundies.

It doesn’t matter; he started with himself and went from there.