People who talk about wine get a lot of questions, and the questions tend to be the same from person to person. Does wine improve with age? How good are very old wines? How long can I keep a bottle of wine? Is it true that wine doesn't travel well? And so it goes.

Does wine improve with age? Yes and no. Yes, because, like a good stew, it needs a little time in the bottle to harmonize and for its various ingredients to get used to each other. No, because most wines are not intended to age; they are produced for immediate consumption. In general, most wines are ready for use within a year or two of bottling. That said, there are some blessed estates whose cabernet sauvignons or syrahs or nebbiolos come from a gifted soil, and they inherit great staying power. It takes a little knowledge to sort out those wines, but rest assured that just about any wine you buy is ready to serve.

What about those older wines -- what do they really taste like? It depends on how old they are and to what extent they spring from one of the blessed plots referenced above. Grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignon will improve for a few years then stabilize for another few years, assuming they receive good care, and then start to tire. Few red wines still taste good after a dozen or so years, white wines after four or five. Of course there are exceptions. The Pontiff counts a 1945 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild (drunk in 1989), and a 1970 Chateau Latour (drunk in 2005) among the greatest of his wine experiences. But most of the 1970-era clarets still in his private cellar are deteriorating.

How about wine traveling? Just think about how it got from where it was produced to where you got it. Chances are it came from France or Italy or Spain or the U.S. West Coast or across the state and tastes just fine -- unless, of course, it was badly handled or subjected to intense heat or extreme temperature variations. Wine is really quite hardy and can stand considerable bumping around, but hot temperatures will kill it. So if it seems different at home from what it was like along the Mediterranean or in Sonoma County, it probably has more to do with the setting than with the quality of the wine. The romance of a seaside table or a California vineyard just can't be replicated at home.

Can't finish a bottle? How long will an open bottle last? Longer than you think, but not very long. At least till next day or possibly the day after, unless it's a wine of considerable age already in decline. Stick the cork in it, put it in a cool place (even the refrigerator), and normally it will do just fine for a day or so.