Wine is one of the world's great joys but, regrettably, many of us take it too seriously. This unfortunate fact makes it more difficult than it should be for the newcomer to enjoy its pleasures.

It quickly becomes evident that just tasting and drinking wine is not enough; talking about it gets equal billing. In essence, this article is intended to reach out to those whose interest in wine has been limited so far. I apologize in advance to those who have long passed through the preliminaries. I hope, however, that you will read on and at least nod your head in agreement.

Much wine talk is intimidating, sometimes by accident, often on purpose, but it's all part of the game - or at least it's convenient to think of it that way. Since the real joy of wine is personal, what other people think about your level of knowledge or your taste should be of no consequence but it's a lot more fun if you're in on the game too. The game, alas, is essentially one-upmanship.

One-upmanship exists in almost every field and even limited observation quickly establishes that for every strategy, there is a better one. A carefully selected remark by a 10-year-old, say, about baseball cards to establish his credibility among his peers is surely inappropriate for the same purpose by a 16-year-old among his peers. Sophistication accelerates until collectors with unlimited assets set about struggling for recognition as the most knowledgeable.

This is intended to illustrate that any simple strategy to provide a modicum of satisfaction among one's own social set must be dealt with cautiously. My advice is tempered with defensive aspects. I opt for something straightforward from which there is no need to retreat; one merely chooses not to amplify.

It is possible to say with sincerity, "I love Mozart," and thereby to establish a defensive position even with no clue as to the existence of Beethoven, Brahms or Stravinsky.

An important adjunct to this can be conveyed by the advice given to me about my first job after my graduation from Harvard Business School. Because of my earlier engineering degree from Yale, I was deemed to possess adequate technical skills to take over the supervision of the Thread Gage Department of a machine tool manufacturing company. When I ingenuously inquired of my boss how I should approach the job as a new guy on the block, he said, “You’ve got to pretend you know a lot about thread gages, until you do."

Returning to wine, I mean to suggest that, once you established your piece of oenological ground, despite its mildly specious quality, it behooves you to give enough attention to it so that what you may soon say has real meaning to you and therefore to whomever you speak with about it.

For some specifics, I would suggest that you select a wine segmentation such as “some real interest in the wines from the East Coast - call it provincialism if you will - but I especially like those from right around this area - Sakonnet and Westport Rivers.”

I have no argument with "I drink primarily Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon," but that’s what altogether too many could say these days. I suggest modifying it by adding something like "My preference is for those of Chile. I find them every bit as good as California's and generally they are less expensive."

A personal is "I'm essentially a Rhone drinker, mainly the reds, but I enjoy the whites too.”

The preference comes from having lived it! The proverbial putting the money where the mouth is has resulted in my embarrassingly skewed wine cellar, loaded with Cotes du Rhone for everyday drinking and with lots of Chateauneuf du Pape, Cote Rotie and Hermitage for special occasions. Those who are already Rhone drinkers will join me in assuring you that “special occasions” will arrive with increasing frequency once you have moved in this direction.

The foregoing is hardly a secret. Rhones are those delightful wines produced along the Rhone Valley in Southern France. The ubiquitous Cotes du Rhone ranges in price from a low of perhaps $7 to a high just short of $15. Even the poorest among them can tickle my taste buds and when I am separated from them for a while, as is often the case during my travels into other wine areas, I literally pine for them.

If you adopt a simple but manageable strategy, you will be entering the game with a position that will provide its own incentive. To fine-tune your message, you'll want to learn everything you can about the wines you've identified and the experience will provide a wonderful benchmark for expanding your range.