How I pick wine–and I don’t know anything about wine

Put a glass in front of me and on a good day, I might be able to tell whether it’s a chardonnay or a savignon blanc. So, given the shortcomings of my taste buds, how do I choose wine?

Geographically.

I look for parts of the world to which I feel a personal connection. Which puts Santa Barbara wines at the absolute top because I grew up in Goleta, California, just over the hilltops from the Santa Ynez wine country, and I like to pull for the home team. If I can’t find a Santa Barbara wine, I scan for Argentine and Chilean wines. Given all the time I spent in both places during my Enduring Patagonia years, I still hold them both close to my heart. Then come wines from Healdsburg, CA, home of the official winery of China’s Wings. (Cartograph Wines are fabulous! Even if I can’t claim to remember exactly what they taste like.) Beyond those, I’m likely to tilt toward a wine from New Zealand, Australia, or Spain–all places I’d like to visit someday.

And if nothing sets a geographic hook, I shop the labels–the more tacky and bizarre, the better.

Here are two wine floozies who caught my eye lately.