be a wine expert

If you’re the right kind of geek, then maybe wine conoisseurship is for you. I’m a little out of the loop now, (being a wine expert is a little like being a techie—it’s a rapidly developing, dynamic field, and you have to put in a lot of hours to keep up with the latest developments-you have to follow a lot of literature and the opinions of a lot of pundits, critics, and, of course, taste a lot of wine; but you also have to just be able to taste), but I worked in the wine business for about 5 years and did precisely those things contained in the parentheses (and acheived the CSW [Certified Specialist of Wine] certification from the Society of Wine Educators). I killed a lot of hours and a lot of brain cells, but I do beleive that it was all worth it. For someone who takes food seriously, there is no companion for it like fine wine.