Personally I think we should charge extra for sediment. Sediment in wine is never a failing. It is a sign of the courageous winemaker who refuses to de-nature his wine just because some supermarkets don't want the cost and effort of explaining sediment to their customers. Real Wine is a joy. Real Ale enthusiasts think the same way. Consider... like it or not, wine is 12 or so percent alcohol, 80 something percent water and a tiny amount of stuff called dry-extract which does all the flavour bit. It triggers all the romance, causes all the books to be written, the court-cases to be fought, the fortunes to be lost. Remove all the water and alcohol and what do you have...well it looks like sediment. So we are supposed to take this sediment out are we? Me, I love old bottles of Hermitage or Châteauneuf where the whole inside of the bottle has become coated with tartar crystals... that's really real wine!

Let's be honest! Corks aren't essential for most wines, only perhaps those venerable bottles that you want to keep for a decade or so. Most would be better serviced with a screw cap. But corks make wine different... they are part of the romance, the courtship, the ceremony of opening a bottle.

Corks, however, can also bring with them unwanted musty flavours that spoil a wine, so there has been much research into finding an alternative. Headway has been made and you may, from time to time, find a synthetic cork-lookalike when you 'pop' open a bottle of Planet of the Grapes wine.

The question of when to drink wine causes far too much worry. Age alone does not give you the answer. There are guidelines but wine is not a precise science - more a matter of personal preference. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide when you drink your wines - but here are a few useful rules of thumb.

Most white wines (particularly inexpensive bottles) are best drunk as young as possible - certainly within a year or two of the vintage. Their appeal is in their freshness and fruitiness. Leave them for much longer and those lovely fresh flavours fade away. There are exceptions however. Full-bodied whites like top-quality Burgundies, other big Chardonnays and fine Rieslings will usually gain complexity with age. Sweet Semillons (Sauternes and the like), Muscats and other dessert wines also reward keeping. Good Champagnes also evolve nicely in bottle. Chenin wines appear to last forever.

You don't have to keep red wine for years... though, again, it depends. They contain more tannin, the stuff that's also present in long-brewed tea. It comes from grapeskins and acts as the wine's perfect natural preservative. You know when tannin is present because of its uncanny mouthpuckering effect. Big traditional reds (like those from some of Bordeaux's greatest estates) can have masses of tannin and do need to be stored for many years before they are soft enough to drink. The fruit mellows and other strange flavours like leather, smoke and earth appear from Lord knows where. The myth that all red wines must be aged to be drinkable stems from these old traditional methods of winemaking. Personally, I prefer to drink even fairly tannic reds young. However I will always drink them with meat or cheese because they soften out the tannin (it is amino acids that do the trick - similar to milk 'softening' the tannin in tea).

Today we know how to make wine without much tannin and most is perfect for drinking quite soon after the vintage. The Australians are masters of this rounded, fruit-driven style... but they are by no means alone. In France - Beaujolais, the Loire, the Rhône, and many areas of the south all produce lovely, early-drinking reds as do the more progressive estates of Spain and Italy.

There are no firm rules. If a wine is well-made - and all of ours are - it will not fall apart at some pre-determined date in the future. To reassure you let me say that I enjoyed a bottle of Beaujolais from the 1920s not so long ago. Very rare, admittedly, but it's surprising how long a well-made wine will keep stored in the right conditions.

Plan your ordering a little ahead of consumption, so you can give your wines a few days to rest before opening. They will taste better for it. Your wines that are to be drunk within the next few months are fine left standing upright in the box. If, however, you want to keep them more than about six months, lay the bottles down so the corks don't dry out, which will let the air in and spoil the wine.

Ideally, keep your bottles out of direct sunlight, away from vibration and at a constant temperature. The exact degree is not so important, as long as it's somewhere between freezing and 65° Fahrenheit/18° Celsius! Wine Storage is well worth thinking about for serious collectors and casual wine collectors alike. Not many people are lucky enough to have cellars and special temperature controlled cabinets are expensive. But following a few simple guidelines will help keep your wines in good condition and improve those that do not need time in bottle.

Nothing mars a wine more than serving it at the wrong temperature. Crisp, dry whites, rosé, sweet and sparkling wines (an hour in the fridge); less chilling allows richer whites to show off their complexity (30 minutes at most in the fridge); heavy reds served too cold will taste teeth-furringly tannic so serve at room temperature; and light reds can benefit from being lightly chilled (20 minutes in the fridge).

Too many corkscrews are made too short for long corks (usually used for more expensive wines). Length is important. So is a good width of screw. Quiet please. Avoid those solid metal corkscrew threads with thick central shafts... they are very good at disembowelling corks. We recommend the 'Screwpull' in all its forms... they can shift the stubbornest with ease. However what we actually use is the sommelier's knife/corkscrew (often called a 'Waiter's Friend')... we carry them with us at all times. They can cut the capsule neatly, and the lever action, once mastered, shifts any cork.

Don't think tasting is for a few privileged palates. Everyone who enjoys a glass of wine can taste wine 'properly'. All it takes is a little extra concentration and a few pointers on what to look for. Here are simple guidelines on how to gain maximum pleasure from every mouthful!

APPEARANCE
Hold your glass, just a third full, at an angle of about 45° against a white surface and look at the colour at the rim and at the centre.

A young red will have a pinkish-purple rim, an old wine a tawny-brown edge. A light-bodied red will be less deep in colour than a fuller-bodied one.

Crisp, light whites will be pale straw in hue, older, richer or sweeter whites are more golden. Generally, white wines gain colour with age, while red wines lose it.

AROMA
The bouquet of a wine is even more important than its taste - as more than half of its flavour is contained in its volatile aromas. Draw a couple of imaginary circles with your glass on a flat surface to swirl the wine around. Then sniff. Your first impression will always be the strongest; after that your nose will gradually tire.

TASTE
Then take a good sip - taking in enough wine to bathe the whole of your mouth. Notice its initial taste (its attack), what flavours develop next (its middle palate) and its finish.

How long do the flavours last? Is it a young tannic wine with enough fruit to age or a smooth, fruity red for drinking now? Are the rich flavours of a white wine balanced by enough acidity, or is the acidity of a fresh white balanced by sufficient fruit?