How Do You Understand Wine?

Kristen Lewis shares her calm, methodical approach to wine education. (I still prefer my chaotic, untrained non-strategy. But I now have a newfound respect for the WSET curriculum).

Wine has always been more than the sum of its parts. Which, when you come down to it, should just be fermented grapes, yeast, sulfites. (It’s often quite a bit more, but that’s another story).

For millennia, wine has been a symbol, ritual object, a sign of status, tool of diplomacy, an expression of time and place. The meaning behind wine can shift from era to era, depending on who is drinking it, why, and where they are.

But one thing remains true: wine makes us feel and taste things that ordinary beverages cannot. It makes a blah Tuesday extraordinary. A simple toast, an tear-jerking tribute. A meeting, a sacred bond. An idea, a lifelong pledge. A casual date, a passionate romance.

When sipped with care, wine can make us better, truer humans.

Wine is transformative. What’s the best way to understand the meaning of wine? For me, it has always been: walk the vineyards, talk to the people, smell the countryside around the vineyards.

What else grows there? How long has viticulture existed in this place, and in what context?

What is the why behind the wine in my glass? And the who, how, where?

I eschew formal wine education because I’m afraid that it will impose formality on wildness. I like exploring wine without borders, walls, limits, rules.

But my chaotic approach is not for everyone. And I fully respect the many well-trained academics, editors, writers, sommeliers, et al who dazzle me during tastings with their esoteric, deep understanding of regions, grapes, and winemaking styles that I am ignorant about. (Haven’t been there yet!)

I was eager to talk through the why behind wine with Kristen Lewis, a French Wine Scholar, wine writer, and educator at the Wine Education Institute, about how she became invested first in wine itself, and then a formal understanding of it via the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, arguably the most globally recognized organization providing courses and certifications in wine, spirits, sake, and beer.

Good + Tasty: First things first. What made you fall in love with wine?

Wine Notes: My parents’ appreciation for wine certainly was my first influence. Their best friends own Billy Crews Fine Dining in El Paso, Texas, known for fine steaks and a wine cellar that’s been awarded by Wine Spectator numerous times. No one believes this story (especially because I’m a teacher now), but I no-showed one of my college finals because I was at the Grand Tasting at the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta with these friends. (The plan had been I’d do the tasting and then the final…which doesn’t make this sound any better, I realize).

Studying abroad in college further opened my eyes to the world of wine. I spent the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in Paris, eating pastry and drinking wine, believing I might have found the secret to life. I’ve also enjoyed reading about wine. After some dear friends and I read Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker, pursuing wine certifications seemed inevitable.

I did the WSET Levels I-III beginning in 2020. After I passed Level III, I began teaching courses for a school in Denver called the Wine Education Institute. My boss there, Barney Treadway, put me through the French Wine Scholar program, which I finished in 2024.

Good + Tasty: As a WSET educator, can you tell us why someone should get a WSET certification?

Wine Notes: It’s an internationally recognized credential that can serve you well in a variety of contexts. We have students who use the credential to advance as bartenders, front-of-house employees, and sommeliers. Others want to order wine off a menu with confidence, build a personal cellar, or simply know enough to appreciate the wine region they’re traveling to next. At the very least, I tell students their WSET credential can offer them more time and attention with winemakers and extra pours from the sommelier.

We have students at every age range (a special shout-out to our many Gen Z students!) and from inside and outside the industry, and yet everyone has two things in common: a love for wine and a desire to learn more. And often once you start learning, you’re hooked. That was certainly the case for me, too.

Good + Tasty: Your “day job” is outside of wine, as a teacher and counselor. Tell us about that.

Wine Notes: I’ve been a music and Spanish teacher the past 18 years and just recently pursued a Masters in School Counseling. Even though my wine identity is completely separate from my job in education, I suppose in some ways it informs how I talk to my students about future careers, namely, that it’s okay to have more than one interest or calling. We don’t have to choose and commit to just one thing in our professional life; these paths can grow and morph and evolve, just like we do.

There’s a theme in the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert that has stayed with me for years, and it’s this idea that you can have a “day job” and also a creative life, and they’re not mutually exclusive. In fact, she argues there is benefit to keeping them separate. As she says, “I was willing to work hard, so that Creativity could play lightly.”

To that end, I’ll remain an educator/counselor for a few years yet, and I also don’t plan on pausing my creative work in wine.

Good + Tasty: You participate in a weekly blind tasting group. What suggestions do you have for people wanting to develop their tasting palate, and why is a tasting group valuable?

Wine Notes: First, I think we have to make an effort to be an aroma and flavor detective- and not just with wine. Here are some tips: catalogue smells when you’re outside (grass, wet leaves, wet sidewalk, rain, blooming flowers); do a focused tasting of all manner of green herbs, then citrus, then berries, then your spice cabinet. When you taste a complex sauce you like, identify every single element you can before you ask what’s in it. This is not only helpful for your sensory recall, it’s pleasurable!

Secondly, join or start a wine tasting group. You don’t need many people—even 3–5 is enough. Designate a leader to choose the grape (or style) and the regions to explore each week. There are lots of ways to structure a tasting, but I’m a fan of side-by-side comparisons of either the same grape or grapes that are easily confused. For example, if the focus is Riesling, you might compare bottles from the Mosel, Alsace, and Australia. Everyone brings a bottle from one of the designated regions, then you taste them blind. You’ll learn far more in a group than you can on your own: you split the cost, taste more wines, and benefit from hearing how other tasters describe what they’re experiencing. Everybody wins.

Good + Tasty: Tell us about Wine Notes, your wine education newsletter on Substack.

Wine Notes: Wine Notes is a wine education newsletter, free for everyone. When I started it a year ago, my subscribers were mostly friends, family, and students from my WSET classes. It has grown within the Substack platform, which is a wonderful place to connect with other wine writers.

I share two pieces per month. The first is a regional guide of a new wine region (here’s the calendar for 2026), highlighting “Place, Grapes & Bottles”. The “Bottles” section highlights important producers at a variety of price points, and was entirely motivated by what I felt was missing from the study materials I’d encountered. The second piece is either educational, like The Sugar Myth in Wine, or a Q&A with a wine professional, like this one from winemaker Paul Fuchs in Alsace. Come on over- I’d love to welcome more subscribers!

Good + Tasty: What are your plans in the world of wine?

Wine Notes: The WSET Diploma! It will probably take me 2-3 years, but I’m okay with a slower pace. In the meantime, I’ll keep going to my tasting group and finding a way to travel to more wine regions!

Good + Tasty: What bottle made you fall in love with wine?

Wine Notes: I’ll pick a grape first- Pinot Noir. And a bottle- Sea Smoke Pinot Noir from the Santa Rita Hills on the central Coast of California.

Good + Tasty: Do you have any advice for new wine lovers? How to expand their palate or explore lesser known regions? How about universally loved grapes or styles?

Wine Notes: There are so many great wine resources, but I really love Wine Folly by Madeline Puckett. It’s organized alphabetically by grape variety, easy to flip through, has great visuals, and gives you a page-at-a-glance view of important regions for each grape.

From there, taste as much wine as you can! I’m a fan of picking a grape and exploring bottles from different regions (Pinot Noir from Burgundy versus central coast California versus the Willamette Valley, for example), or several bottles within one region (for example, red and whites from northern Italy).

My last piece of advice is consider taking a wine class or workshop. Of course I recommend the WSET courses, but shop around and see what appeals to you. And lastly, utilize the expertise of the staff at your local wine store and the sommelier at restaurants you visit! They know their selection better than anyone else and are eager to share the fun with curious guests. Ask questions, follow their advice, and build a relationship–they will become your favorite mentors.

Good + Tasty: Do you have one go to meal or recipe that goes with many types of wine?

Wine Notes: I traveled to Mendoza, Argentina in May, and tasted a lot of Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I did a tasting at Durigutti, where my guide mentioned that green, peppery notes in Cab Franc are a great match for enchiladas, and honestly, that inspired a fun dinner party for me this summer. Cabernet Franc from Argentina generally has riper and darker fruit characteristics, with a more mellow green note than we see on Cab Franc from the Loire. See if you agree! Try Argentinian Cabernet Franc with Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas. Cabernet Franc is also a perfect match with sweet, earthy beets; I love this recipe for garlicky beet dip by Alison Roman.

Does Kristen’s perspective make me rethink my mad approach? No. But it helped me understand and appreciate her methodology in a completely new way. Readers: are you team curriculum or chaos? And there is no wrong answer. Understanding wine is subjective, just like my chaotic tasting notes. Cheers to mystery, esoterica, humanity, fermentation.