A good wine-education CD-ROM

From a computer nerd's point of view, it stops short of state-of-the-art, particularly in the rather fuzzy and jerky "videos" that illustrate such random lessons as how grapes are crushed and pressed, not to mention the smiling face of British wine writer Oz Clarke, the digitized host of this presentation, as he introduces the program and shows us how to sniff, swirl, sip and, yes, spit.

Those flaws aside, however, if you love reading about wine and playing with computer toys as much as I do, this CD-ROM (subtitled "Your Essential Multimedia Wine Reference" and generally based on Mr. Clarke's "Pocket Wine Guide") is the most professionally produced and easy to use beverage-related multimedia package to roll out in a growing field, and I think it's well worth the $39 price. (Sorry, Mac users and DOS fundamentalists; it requires Microsoft Windows.)

The program comes up to soft background music, a popping cork, and Clarke's smiling face. Click on his nose, and he reads an introduction. Or click the mouse to select a course in wine tasting or an overview featuring articles on vine growing, wine making, wine grapes, reading the label, and matching food and wine. Other multimedia options include an extensive wine encyclopedia and glossary with more than 2,000 entries; and a wine atlas with maps of a dozen major world wine regions.

It's all linked together with perhaps the program's most impressive feature, the "Wine Selector," a database of nearly 6,000 tasting notes, and an easy procedure to narrow your search by region, grape, wine style, rating and food compatibility to retrieve specific wine recommendations almost instantly.