No vocabulary required. Six things worth knowing to walk into a shop, spend under twenty dollars, and come out with wine you enjoy.

A broken cork is almost never the end of the bottle. How to remove one cleanly, what to do if it crumbles, and how to stop it happening again.

Another bottle of wine is the safe, forgettable choice. How to pick a gift for a wine lover that still exists in six months.

Reds three to five days, whites two to three, sparkling about one. What actually makes wine go off after opening, and the four things that genuinely extend it.

Aeration is chemistry, not ceremony. Which wines benefit from air, which are damaged by it, and how to tell the difference in one taste test.