Ladies: they can do anything! (Getty Images)

It was in a cozy Brooklyn hideaway, Night of Joy, that we met our first female sommelier. Theresa Paopao had a deck of tarot cards, and we had begged her to give us a reading. (Which came out all swords, something Ms. Paopao claimed that she had never seen before; hurriedly shoving her cards back into a deck and shifting her chair slightly away from us.) We assumed that she was just another Williamsburg hipster.

"Actually, I'm the wine director for Momofuku," Ms. Paopao told us. We gasped, audibly shocked into silence as if she had just casually dropped that she was a lumberjack or ran an advertising agency.

"But you're a woman!" we sputtered.

Yes, you heard it right: women are now being allowed into the elite men's club of sommeliers at some of New York's finest restaurants. New York Daily News reports on this disturbing trend in today's paper, marking out once-esteemed restaurants like Monkey Bar, The Breslin, Lure, Le Bernardin, and Burger & Barrel as harborers for a secret cabal of women wine experts.

But where did these ladies learn the skills to distinguish tanins and determine what year of Barolo goes with lacquered hiramasa? Why, men of course:

Many of these women’s mentors were in fact men, Chang thanks Joseph Spellman, Mandy, Andrew Bell of the American Sommelier Association, and Laura, Greg Harrington of Gramercy Cellars.

Do you have enough of that wonderful Duff?

"Pretty much anything they can get their hands on," said Matt Barclay at Park Slope's Bierkraft in answer to The Observer's question about what types of beer people were picking up in anticipation of Hurricane Irene.

The rush is, indeed, on at some of the city's tonier beer and wine stores, as news of the storm's approach rises toward an ursine belch. "People have definitely been, like, stockpiling," Mr. Barclay said over the phone, "picking up an extra growler here and there, and then asking about how much the cases are going to cost."

At New Beer Distributors on the Lower East Side's Chrystie Street, the foot traffic bounced yesterday, as the usual assemblage of customers trained it in from the Bronx, Queens, etc. Tomorrow, however, according to an employee, the store will not open as usual in anticipation of Irene shutting the subways. (Incidentally, The Observer's long-planned Urban Oyster beer tour of Williamsburg scheduled for Saturday was cancelled due to safety and convenience concerns. We'll get there.)

Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit in the Flatiron had not seen a jump in foot traffic—at least not as of 12:30 on Friday afternoon. "You've got to realize that in the summer, 40 percent of your customers are gone no matter what, and they're still gone," said the store's manager, Gary Itkin, in answer to our question about hurricane-spurred shopping. "For the moment, right now, the answer's no. But that could change in a few hours as people start to panic more."

So stay tuned (if you're in the sauce trade, drop us a line as conditions shift).

And, please, New York, drink responsibly until you're safely indoors.

Updated 1:53 p.m.: BR Guest, controller of restaurants like Atlantic Grill, Bill's Bar & Burger, Blue Fin and Blue Water Grill, emailed to say they have a new drink special going this weekend: $10 hurricane cocktails all day through Sunday. Plus! Any woman named Irene gets her first hurricane on the house.

tacitelli@observer.com :: Follow on Twitter @tacitelli

Now what? Faux pas await you, ones you'd never find with wine.

For one thing, wine has labels to give even the cheapest hooch the veneer of respectability. No one ever has to know, do they? It's provably difficult to tell the $7.99 bottle from the $79.99 one. Unless your host insists upon an on-site Google search, you can shield yourself with a label from any cries of penury. All those cursive fonts! Foreign words! Warm backstory from family vineyards! In places you or your hosts will likely never, ever visit! Or, if they are not ornate and foreign-seeming, they are achingly postmodern, with clean vistas punctuated by too-cute names like "Fire Engine" or "Red Truck," or, as if daring you not to get the joke, "Table Wine."

And, finally, the adjectives! "Velvety," "notes of graphite," "effervescent yet heavy," "black currant," "black cherry," "black licorice," "blackberry."

You can't pull this with beer. The cheaper brands are easily delineated; people are going to know when you show up with a Budweiser or a Miller. The labels are plain and simple, and to the point. Big Beer throws its shoulder into advertising, not design. Besides, not much backstory to a can of Old Milwaukee; not many adjectives to describe a Genessee Cream Ale ("old cleat" perhaps).  

What to do without shellacking the bank? (Because that's the thing with beer at dinner parties—you must bring more of it: "You need two six-packs for every one bottle of wine," observed a friend of mine, a made member of that Brooklyn family some call Brobo. "And the sixers have to be two different varieties!") One solution, and it's virtually failsafe: Turn to Belgian beers.

"Types of beer to bring to a dinner? Most likely I would bring a Belgian beer," Dawn Gabriele Land, a Brooklynite who works in the wine industry, said over email. Besides going good with an array of foods, "Belgian beers usually have the cleanest, nicest labels—they look expensive. The bottles are corked and caged like Champagne—it makes a good impression."

A lot of other beer bottles, however fine the contents inside, wouldn't cut it. Craft brewers are inconoclastic people, bad asses all. "If you wouldn't feel comfortable giving a host a bottle of Woop Woop Shiraz," Ms. Land explained, "you won't feel comfortable giving a bottle of Hop Stoopid either."

There is the alternative, though: to plunge straight ahead with such seemingly crazed bottles and to confront the task of managing expectations through information. In other words, show up with Lagunitas' Hop Stoopid and expect to explain things.

Perhaps, then, the etiquette's simple, but circuitous, like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books from adolescence. If you're going to bring beer to the dinner party and you don't mind a flush few moments as the center of attention, then bring the great beer, regardless of the label. If you want to just plant the bottle(s) in the host's hands and make a beeline, a la wine, then opt for the quiet dignity of a Chimay or an Ommegang.

Also, remember that one caveat: "One 12-ounce bottle isn't going to cut it," warned Carolyn Edgecomb, president of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society, over email. "Bring at least a bomber, a 750-ml or a six-pack. A growler is another excellent option, just make sure you bring it fresh."

And I hope this goes without saying, but don't drink it all by yourself—no more than you would uncork a bottle of 2000 Saint Emilion Grand Cru, and casually down it throughout dinner. People, please.

PREVIOUSLY >> A THANKS TO SUNNY CALIFORNIA

tacitelli@observer.com and @tacitelli

Times booze expert Eric Asimov's campaign for the frivolous -- but tasty! -- warm-time cordial was sparked by a tweet by Lockhart Steele, who explained that one should drink the pink stuff during the cold months only if it's being tested for summertime.

Yet the prejudice — what else can one call it? — endures. In a Twitter post last week, Lockhart Steele, the founder of Eater.com and other Web sites, suggested that few excuses were acceptable for drinking rosé in January. Well, excuse me, Mr. Steele, you’ve obviously never tried a wine like Jean-Paul Brun’s 2009 Rosé d’ Folie, a minerally pink Beaujolais that I would drink any time of the year, especially if I had a plate of chicken roasted with garlic, rosemary and thyme.

Why this insistence to drink rosé when it's freezing out? As a collective we've gone back and forth over when to drink certain wines, kowtowing to convention one year and throwing up our arms in concession others. A bottle of white with my bloody steak, please, because who follows the rules these days right!

Not quite. We clamor for some decency in our lives, and thus we will not touch rosé until the rebirth of Christ allows us to wear white. A bottle of red will do us more than fine.

Click for Scandal Report: Champagne Mania Makes for A Boozy Golden Globes

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

John Kinnucan says he was sipping wine on his front porch in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 25 when a gray sedan pulled up and two men in business suits jumped out, identifying themselves as FBI agents.

Just because John Kinnucan enjoys the occasional glass of vino doesn't mean he's soft, and he sure isn't a snitch. After the Feds barged in and asked him to cooperate with an investigation, Kinnucan dashed off an email to his friends on the Street to warn them that the heat is on. He wrote:

Today two fresh faced eager beavers from the FBI showed up unannounced (obviously) on my doorstep thoroughly convinced that my clients have been trading on copious inside information.... We obviously beg to differ, so have therefore declined the young gentleman's gracious offer to wear a wire and therefore ensnare you in their devious web.

Kinnucan sent this tidy little missive to some big-deal firms, including SAC Capital, Citadel, Janus, Wellington and MFS. Is Goldman Sachs a figure in this story? Yes!

In another aspect of the probes, prosecutors and regulators are examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers leaked information about transactions, including health-care mergers, in ways that benefited certain investors, the people say. Goldman declined to comment.

People who tread in these potentially extralegal circles probably didn't start out on burgundy, but now may be a good time to switch to the harder stuff.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

Shouldn't it? 

Last March, Governor Paterson watched his plan to legalize the sale of wine in grocery stores drown in a dizzying maelstrom of debate and protest from small liquor store owners throughout the state. They unified through the Last Store on Main Street campaign: a grassroots merger of the upstate New York State Liquor Store Association and their downstate counterpart, the Metropolitan Package Store Association. 

Now Governor Paterson has reintroduced the wine-in-grocery-store initiative; and this time, with a freshly unveiled $8.2 billion budget deficit, the stakes are higher. With hopes of minimizing the usual fury of lobbyist backlash, he's laced his new initiative with compensation for liquor-store owners, like changing the highly restrictive liquor laws to allow them to sell snacks, cheeses, and gift baskets, and to let them operate ATMs. 

Michael Correra, executive director of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, the downstate liquor store lobby, considers the compensation to be paltry at best. "We feel 1,000 stores will be out of business," he said. "Our most profitable products are being taken away from us. Potato chips and gift baskets aren't going to begin to fill that void." 

According to the lobby's Web site, wine accounts for as much as 80 percent of liquor store sales in New York State, so it's not easy to convince a liquor-store owner that you should be able to buy a cabernet in the same place you buy your Soap Opera Digest, and Mr. Paterson isn't likely to sway them to pipe down. If anything, their message is steeped in an intense sense of urgency this time around.

"This will kill small business," said Stefan Kalogridis, president of the upstate New York Liquor Store Association. "I have senior citizens working for me to supplement their Social Security, I have college kids working for me to pay off loans. These people will lose their jobs." 

With these kinds of arguments pervading their frequent mailers and press releases, it's no surprise that the Main Street lobby's grassroots campaign has been so effective. They raised almost $1 million in just over a month of fund-raising last spring, which was enough to efficiently communicate their cause to legislators and state—officials, who, according to Mr. Kalogridis, didn't want to support a measure that would threaten employment and shut down businesses in their districts.

The lobby might have been a hit with politicians, but it also energized an opposition of New Yorkers who, besides craving an increased availability of wine, are concerned about the future of state funding for their schools, municipal services, and public transportation. The state is currently hemorrhaging financially, devouring its non-renewable resources and fumbling for new sources of revenue to make up for dramatic financial shortfalls, and we're in no position to scoff at any reform that promises $162 million of new revenue, they'd argue.

Proponents of the measure accuse the lobby of politicized and manipulative exaggeration.

"Other states sell wine in grocery stores and they manage it," says Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director at the non-partisan Citizens' Budget Commission. "This will be an opportunity for smaller liquor stores to develop their local market place, where they have a specialty; maybe by offering tastings, or selling local or organic wine that's harder to stock in the larger chains. It's an opportunity for them to create their own marketplace."

Indeed, while their business may take a big hit, the whole package-store industry isn't going to get eradicated overnight. In 35 states where wine is sold in grocery stores, liquor stores still exist. In Florida, which adopted a similar measure placed against similar legal restraints, liquor stores often exist next door or across the street to supermarkets, and offer better, more specialized wines as a way to serve a niche market. 

Upstate liquor store owners, who have been very vocal in the debate, counter that without as much demand for organic or specialty wines in their regions, they stand to be out-priced by wholesalers.

David Paterson has the consumers of New York State on his side. After all, what oenophile wouldn't want more options, at presumably better prices? For the moment, he also has the support of Senate Conference Leader John Sampson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but considering his ever-dwindling reserve of political capital and tanking poll numbers, Mr. Paterson may watch his legislative support for the measure turn to vinegar under the stomping feet of angry wine merchants.

At Xicala, a Nolita tapas bar a hair smaller than the average Manhattan living room, sangria isn't just an afterthought. It's the specialty. Preparation is careful—not ladled from a sludgy jug of leftover table wine and fermenting fruit. Wine is studded with fresh strawberries, which add in a layer of sweet and tart flavors. The signature drink is echoed in the bar's deep red walls, the color field brightened by glittering mirrors and glass tiles. A handful of rough-hewn wooden tables and benches anchor the cozy, rustic vibe. On warmer nights, French doors open wide onto sidewalk tables, where couples and nabe professionals nosh on Spanish small plates like fat marinated olives, salty slivers of prosciutto and tender chicken meatballs. House specialties, including codfish chunks dunked in port raspberry vinaigrette and grilled baby lamp chops slathered in a honey-orange sauce, are worth waiting for the bartender/waitress's free moment. In the off chance you want a little more depth than a summery sangria can offer, Xicala's short wine list is well curated, with the expected Spanish focus and specials that change daily.

151 Elizabeth St., near Kenmare St.; 212-219-0599 

Perhaps not coincidentally, New Yorkers are cutting back slightly on nights out per week (2.0) and on their nightly drink intake (3.2), compared to years past, the new survey finds.

Also, meatpacking is still hot. And yet not. Read survey gurus Tim and Nina Zagat's comments on the new trends here.

More nightlife survey highlights:
 
A record 11 new wine bars have opened this year, featuring such tannic monikers as Grape & Grain, Wine & Roses, and Wined Up.
Adding 14 new nightspots, the East Village is the year's most busy 'hood in terms of venue openings; incredibly shrinking Little Italy gained two. 
Meatpacking remains both "most popular" and "most overrated" nighttime destination; Chelsea and Greenwich Village replace Soho and the Upper East Side, respectively as runner's up on the irritation scale. 
Women go to Stanton Social, men prefer Brother Jimmy's.
Buddha Bar debuted at No. 2 on the Most Popular Spot list. At No. 1, meatpacking neighbor Pastis; while fellow Keith McNally hangout Balthazar ranked third. 
65 percent of New Yorkers consider bottle service a complete "rip-off." Are you listening City Council?
86 percent of New Yorkers still approve of the city's smoking ban. Are you listening Josh Hartnett?
Most New Yorkers drink wine on weekdays (44%); save the mixed drinks for weekends (55%) 
After normal clubbing hours, most New Yorkers (a) want food, 46%; (b) want sleep, 31%; or (c) want sex, N/A. Wait. Is that what Zagat means by "go home right to bed"?