method to this madness?

[Innkeeper]

Nate, I'll try to answer some of your questions, and let others answer the rest. Store sparkling wine in the coldest part of the refegerator, and white still wine in the next coldest part.

The biggest difference between buying or even tasting wine in the U.S. and in Europe is that here we not only have wines from all over the country at our fingertips or lips or whatever, but also wine from all over the world. In Europe, except for a few select and usually expensive places in the major cities, most people buy, drink, and sell local wines. You need not know much more than the local words for red and white. The names for varietal wines are much the same in other languages as they are in English.

As far as tracking down the wine tasting events, I'll leave that for others.