Master sommelier Alpana Singh has just penned a new book about women and wine, Alpana Pours: About Being a Woman, Loving Wine & Having Great Relationships. It is based on her observations of couples and how they interact over wine, as well as how to incorporate wine into different occasions, such as from "first dates to 'meeting the parents'." It seems aimed at women who are novice wine drinkers - just about everyone, compared to Singh - and wants to serve as an introduction to the subject, to push wine one step closer to being an everyday thing. Here are a few of Singh's most basic tips for wanna-be wine lovers

• Older isn't always better, so don't be afraid to drink it if you've got it.
• Chardonnays are "'pretty boys' that don't ask you to think." Develop a taste for "sophisticates" like Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling and Sangiovese.
• Chilling inexpensive wines makes "off" flavors disappear in whites, and makes reds "taste earthier and richer."
• "Don't give easily recognized, inexpensive wines as gifts." Look for more obscure, but still recommended, budget wines.

Wine reviews can sometimes be a bit... annoying. Once in a while, the flavors described in a review will actually come through in the wine, but more often than not the "crisp" flavor and "pineapple notes" are nowhere to be seen. Or, at least, they cannot be identified by the average wine drinker.

To actually get some use out of the reviews, we've come up with a game to play the next time you have some friends over. Print out a copy of the review and pour each of your friends a glass of the wine. As they sample it, get them to try and guess how the reviewer described it. They almost always involve a fruit or a wood, so that's a good one to guess, but you can get creative. Here's a review to get you started:

I can relate to the first paragraph in this Boston Globe piece about buying and drinking white wine during the summer. Or any time of year, actually. I'm a big lover of red wines, but white wine just confuses me. It doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of white wine. I don't know what it is, but the very few glasses of white wine I've had in my life, I just haven't liked the taste at all. But maybe that's because I haven't had the right white wine.

The Globe gives a lot of tips on what Sauvignon Blancs to buy, and it's good (for me and other people who live in the area anyway) that all of the stores mentioned are local.

So, help me out readers. What white wine would you suggest a newbie like myself should drink?