Imagine you are sitting on a patio in late summer with the temperature hovering around the century mark and you're hankering for something to cool your fevered brow. Besides a cold beer, the wine that works best in this setting is anything that's cold. Usually that's white or rosé wine or perhaps a bubbly.

Red wine clearly would be an interloper in this setting.

By contrast, in the depths of winter with the temperature gauge at zero and you all bundled in wool, a warming deep-red wine seems more appropriate than a chilled glass of Riesling.

The enjoyment of wine frequently comes down to context and setting. When the context is right the wine tastes so much better; when it's wrong … Well, how's about a tale?

I once was chatting with an East Coast wine merchant, a jocular fellow whose name I believe actually starts with the phrase "fun-loving." We were chatting about great red Burgundies, and I asked if he had ever tasted one rather famous one.

"Yeah," said disgustedly.

"Oh, was the wine bad? It's supposed to be great," I said.

"Well, it was a good bottle, but the dinner I was at was at the house of some people I really don't like, so the wine was just blah."

He said that whenever he thinks of that wine, he remembers how boring the evening was where he had tasted it.

Imagine two scenarios:

A. You're celebrating a birthday and a great bottle of old Bordeaux (say the 1990 Chateau Latour) you've been storing for 15 years is decanted by the sommelier. You are in the company of loved ones, the evening is festive, the food fabulous, the glassware superb.

B. You are sitting three rows up from field level at a football game, behind the tuba player in the band. The temperature is 90 degrees and there is no shade. The sandwiches you brought are falling apart, and someone hands you a plastic cup with some 1990 Chateau Latour in it.

Under which setting is the wine going to taste better?

This message is also about serving good but not great wine and having it taste better than its station.

Imagine a more modest wine with the first setting. It would still taste a lot better than it would under the second setting. And thus the admonition to treat wine, food, friends and settings with equal care.

Some of the finest bottles of wine I have ever had were modest in price, but suited the setting, the context, better than if the wine had been more exalted. Chianti is better with pizza than is an expensive Corton-Charlemagne. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is better with poached sole than is a $500 bottle of Napa Cabernet.

Years ago I attended a dinner party where smoked salmon was served for the first course. Two wines were served to accompany it. One was an exalted bottle of a California Chardonnay — oaky, intense and very expensive. The other was a "little" wine, a French Chablis with enough acid to etch enamel. It sold for about a sixth of the Chardonnay.

The Chardonnay tasted tinny and sweet with the salmon. The Chablis was the clear choice of all but the Chardonnay lovers, a few of whom oohed and aahed about the richness of the wine and how "impressive" it was. I was more impressed by the flavor combination of the smoked salmon and the Chablis.

Modest wine served with the right foods, with fun-loving (or simply loving) people, often makes for a more enjoyable experience than when the wine costs a fortune but it's out of sync with the setting.

The late wine authority and author H. Warner Allen one said it best in one of his charming books:

"The wines that one remembers best are not necessarily the finest that one has tasted; the highest quality may fail to delight so much as some far more humble beverage drunk in more favourable surroundings."

It's great to be able to regularly drink wines of great quality. But context can be used to elevate modest wines to their peak of enjoyableness.

Wine of the Week: 2007 Weingut Koster-Wolf Riesling, Rheinhessen, Trocken ($12/1 liter): An aroma of slate, citrus and peach leads to a faintly sweet entry, and then very dry aftertaste in this stylish and inexpensive German wine. Trocken is German for "dry," and the faint bit of sweetness in the first sip is offset by high acidity, making this wine a good match for seafood dishes.

Dan Berger resides in Sonoma County, Calif. Berger publishes a weekly newsletter on wine and can be reached at danberger@VintageExperiences.com. To find out more about Dan Berger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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