John Ayer's "rules" for wine and life in general because they really are the same thing.

1: learn as much about wine as you want to know, no less and no more.

2: A wine glass is anything clean and handy, including the bottle.

3: Wine tastings are good places to meet people and lousy places to enjoy wine.

4: Wine can enhance and/or ruin the taste of food. Food can enhance or destroy the taste of wine. Decide if you like the combination, AND, do not decide you hate either the food or wine based on the combination. Taste them each by themselves at a time when neither can influence the other before you make a decision.

5: Advice is useful and usually reasonable it does not hurt you to try different things, even if they taste bad or you dislike them. People have different tastes and something that others enjoy you may dislike, somethings that others dislike you may enjoy. The only way you know is to try different things. You may surprise yourself.

6: Ignore anyone who tries to humiliate or ridicule your decisions or your opinion about wine. Only a base, ignorant piece of crap (or someone going through a really bad time) will ridicule you or try to humiliate you.

7: Don't waste your time regretting things you have tried and decided were not good, no matter how much they cost you or the people around you. Life is a learning experience. Dumb people refuse to learn from their mistakes, smart people make mistakes and learn from them and don't repeat them, brilliant people learn from the mistakes of others BUT people are different and sometimes we have to try things for ourselves no matter how smart we are.

8: Only robots always obey the “rules”, including these.