In the dark ages of the 1970s, I took my first "tasting" trip to the California wine country. A couple of friends and I drove from San Fransisco to Sonoma, where we visited Sebastiani and Buena...

Master sommelier Richard Betts has Thanksgiving wine down pat. His method? Offer lots of options. "At my house," he says, "you'll find a handful of bottles on the table. I put them out..."

Two sommeliers, one of them a star of the new documentary Somm, teach the basics of Santa Barbara's wine by focusing on three components: grape, variety, alcohol level and age...