"You are invited to a wine tasting party this Sunday at 2." I had invited good friends, all lovers of vino: Roman Roth, a dear friend, who just happens to be[in my opinion] one of Long Island's best winemakers; Michael Shannon (the man who is single-handedly remodeling every inch of my house) and his lovely wife Colleen; the beautiful Kim Adair, a former Ford model, and John Bills, tenor at the Metropolitan Opera and my significant other (OK, he's my boy friend!).

"This is definitely not a contest, there will be no first place or second place winners in this wine tasting," I told my guests. "Just bring a bottle of red or white wine, it doesn't matter from where or how much it costs, and wrap the bottle in tin foil so no one can see the label."

Being a former chef, I love cooking up a storm on a relaxed winter Sunday. When the weather is lousy is there anything better than to spend an afternoon with friends, eating great food, drinking interesting wines and improving your wine knowledge and vocabulary? I think not!

I decided to do all the food in an easy, low maintenance way. After all,I wanted to have fun too! The theme was Spanish. John and I shopped for chorizos (spicy sausage), a selection of olives, pates, fresh onion baguettes, all easily found at King Kullen. We asked Roman to bring some of the excellent Emmenthaler (a Swiss-style cheese) he is making at Wolffer Sag Pond Vineyard.

I set all the "tapas" on a table in the middle of the living room, easy to get to and no serving involved.I had enough tasting glasses for each flight (a tasting of a series of wines) without having to wash any. (Hint:consider renting glasses if you don't have enough, it won't cost that much and you won't have to interrupt the flow of the tastings).

The second course was "Paella Sharita" a dish I made famous at The Ship's Galley in Sag Harbor. Paella is an easy dish to make, it just takes a lot of prep work. John volunteered to be sous chef and did a lot of chopping of garlic and peppers. Putting it all together is easy,the cooking time is about 45 minutes, and it leaves the hostess plenty of time to enjoy her guests without a lot of distractions.

When our guests arrived we asked them if they brought red or white and separated them accordingly. After everyone had glasses of ice cold water to cleanse their palates we started to pour the first flight of whites. We had three bottles of white to taste.

Roman, our professional winemaker, led the tasting with a brief run-down of the elements of tasting wine: sight, smell, and taste. Describe the color. Is it light gold, golden with a hint of amber, pale yellow, etc.? What is the nose, or smell? Citrus, grassy, oakey, flowery.. Describe what you taste without holding back descriptive words. A tinge of apricot, tobacco,leather, a big burst of fruit, the oak of the wine cask, grass, a couple of fruit flies? Don't be afraid to express yourself. Remember you are among friends and this is supposed to be fun, not a competition. Swallowing should be the best part, of course!

At a tasting party you are only filling the glasses with small amounts of the wine, maybe a knuckle's worth, no more. Tasting is about learning and enjoying, not getting zonked! We all enjoyed the white wine with the tapas. It's important to eat when you are tasting, another way to stay out of the zonked zone!

I kept "tasting notes" on each guest's impressions of each wine. When we had tasted all the whites we took the foil off each bottle and there was more discussion,either about how surprised we were or how right on target we were in describing the grape varietal and the wine region it came from.The whites we tasted were:

• Channing Perrine Riesling '98 (North Fork, Long Island),
• Atlas Peak Chardonnay '98 ( Napa),
• Clos du Bois Chardonnay '98(Alexander Valley).