(WineSpectator) - The other night I served to some guests what I thought was an absolute beauty of a dry white wine. We were having a simple fish dish and I figured that one of my beloved Muscadets was just the ticket. I figured wrong.

"So tell me," said one of my guests in her most diplomatic, I'm-trying-to-be-reasonable-here voice, "what exactly is the appeal of this wine?"

"It's the stoniness," I said. "The minerality. The crispness. The sheer originality."

"I'd rather have a Chardonnay," she replied.

Yes, you'd think I would have learned my lesson by now. This was hardly the first time that I've trotted out a wine that others have considered about as attractive as a five-day-old flounder. Is it my fault? Sure it is. My job as a host is to please my guests.

But we wine writer types are nothing if not evangelical. The old Star Trek line—"To explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before"—well, that's what wine writers are supposed to do, right?