Let’s face it: For many of us, the sole enjoyment of wine does not lie in the act of tasting it. Spinning the nectar in its fishbowl glass, peering through to white tablecloth on the other side to examine color and clarity, snorting and sniffing to detect the slightest hint of must or hay, and finally swirling our tongues around and through our first sip before swallowing . . . this isn’t what most of us look forward to when we buy a bottle at the liquor store. When I come home with a tell-tale paper bag under my arm, the top scrunched around the neck of the bottle belying its contents, I want to drink a glass while cooking, drink a glass while eating, and drink half a glass when the last of my dinner’s sauce is mopped up with a crust of bread. And if, by the end of dinner, we are laughing a bit louder and care a little bit less about the pile of dishes in the sink, well, the wine can take the credit for that, too.

However, I do know those who love the routine. They can spend all day taking notes, and sipping, and cleansing their tannin-dry palates with all sorts of precious nibbles. Their closets are filled with emptied bottles worth remembering; they have oversized snifters filled with corks with dates scrawled on them. These people are obsessed.

But it remains a fact that, without a bit of knowledge, wine-buying mistakes can be made which will affect one’s opinion of the drink for a lifetime. And those mistakes are not always the consumers’; one experience with a snotty wine-store owner — or worse, the underpaid part-time " expert " who stares dumbly at your fumbling description of a forgotten wine you had a few weeks before — can blow the whole thing. Perhaps a snazzy label catches your eye, and you purchase to experiment with it; all of a sudden the glass in your hand is making the fish on your fork taste like a tin can. Dining at a restaurant, you have one shot to buy a bottle that you think you’ll like. The wine list proudly contains a thousand options, and, overwhelmed, you end up choosing by price range and color rather than style or food pairing.

Yes, no matter how you enjoy wine, whether you’re a gulper or a sipper, it’s nice to have an idea of what you like, and how it will go with what you’re eating.

There are plenty of opportunities in this city to increase your awareness of this complicated world. Besides the wine bars, it has become much more commonplace in the last few years to see high-end wine stores offering free tastings, where a number of wines of a particular region, style, or theme are available for side-by-side comparisons.

" We get the opportunity to taste some pretty fun wines, and we really want to show them off, " says Colleen Caron, wine manager for the Clown. " And it gives customers trust in us that will keep them coming back. It’s a commitment to making sure you know your customer, and know what they’ll like. "

The wine cellar of the Clown is exactly that: a trip to the basement of the art gallery/antiques/wine store. Racks of wine line the brick walls, categorized by region and style, as well as a few by food type. Having lamb? There’s a rotating selection that will go great with that meat’s distinctive flavor. It started off as a joke, Colleen says. " We originally did that with a bit of a chuckle, but it’s been really, really successful. "

The Clown’s tasting themes run the gamut: blind tastings, comfort wines for comfort foods, alternative packaging, whatever comes to mind that month. Other stores, like LeRoux, try not to fall into too much of a pattern. Kraig Friedman, the store’s wine and product manager, lets spontaneity drive his choices, but encourages experimentation. His themes are broader, such as " great inexpensive wines, " or " great holiday wines " in December instead of the traditional champagne tasting.

" I’m not going to open Kendall Jackson wines. Everyone in Maine knows what Kendall Jackson wines taste like, " says Friedmand. " We do this in hopes that people will taste what they wouldn’t normally try, to broaden their horizons. " Like the Clown, LeRoux hands out tasting notes in order to solidify the wine in the taster’s memory. That way, the next time the patron comes in the store, they have parameters and descriptions to guide them to a good wine. Tim Wissemann, of Downeast Beverage, finds that taking notes not only pays off down the road, but immediately as well.

" On nights of wine tastings, we actually sell more wine that’s not being tasted than those that are being tasted, " he explains. Since Downeast Beverage offers discounts on all wines being tasted that night, they rely on sales of other wines to make the no-charge samplings financially worthwhile. If someone comes back a few days later wanting more of the same, or better yet a suggestion of a similar but different label, that’s the ultimate goal of the tasting for all stores offering them. It’s a sign of a budding relationship between consumer and provider.

Colleen Caron agrees. " The best customer is the one that trusts that you’re going to give them a good wine. "

Tom Hansen, who got in on this free-tasting trend early, first with Market Wines in 1998 and more recently with his newish next-door wine bar Meritage, says he’s seen an explosion both in wine stores and wine consumers, " and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down — almost every week you can find a free tasting to go to. " But the demand has increased faster than the supply, " and so has the interest in understanding it all, " he says. " There’s just as much confusion as there ever was. That’s why I teach wine classes. "

Further up the chain, wine distributors agree that wine education, especially in the form of free tastings, can affect the wine market drastically. Nappi Beverage’s Mike Hale believes that it is necessary to give consumers a venue where they can take the emphasis off the advertising. " People are attracted to good marketing, many times, and not the bottle itself. In general, if you can educate the public on good wine rather than good marketing, the better for everybody.

" In our Thursday tasting meetings, we taste $6.99 bottles that are better than some that are 10 times that, " Hale admits. Thus, having a trusting and informed relationship with a good wine-store manager can literally save you hundreds of dollars over the long haul. Conversely, it can kick-start a hobby that allows you to spend hundreds of dollars more on the really great wines.

But don’t pay attention to that just yet, friend. You still need to discover what malolactic fermentation is, and if you can toss it down with your Indian takeout. So get your drinking shoes on.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com