Best New Show on Public Radio

Alternately intriguing and annoying, this weekly hour of winetastings, wine talk, industry insider gossip, and general gourmet chit-chat would be unbearably precious if hosts Mark Spivak and John List weren't so goddamn knowledgeable. The oenologically challenged may still come away with the sneaking suspicion that all the talk about noses, backbones, tannins, and terroirs is nothing more than the emperor's new clothes for alcoholics, but the hosts bring such panache to the patter that the listener has no choice but to be swept away, even when the air gets thick with self-congratulation. "Until next week," the weekly signoff goes, "drink no white zinfandel." Like we haven't already learned that much. A show has to be pretty damn entertaining to draw you back after that. This one is.