As technology marches forward, there’s talk and debate about how the wines of tomorrow might be changed: taking out the tannins, stripping out the sulphites, and dialing down the alcohol.

In the meantime, if you’re drinking in this New Year’s Eve, there’s a chance you might feel KO’d on Day One, just for having a good time. Take the longview, alternate the vino with agua, and proceed slowly.

Here’s Jill to play nurse and tiptoe us through some morning-after remedies.

• JILL’S TWO CENTS

Amarone della Valpolicella: it’s not an Italian racing bike, but judging from the price tag, it’s not your regular Valpolicella either.

What’s it made of, and what makes it different? Why is winter the time to splurge for this wine? Marcel will walk us through the charms of the darkly seductive Amarone.

Goes great with: hunting tweeds, braised beast, poached figs, intense aged cheeses.

• WHAT’S MARCEL THINK

Got some Oenophiles on your holiday gift list? Want to show up with something besides a bottle? Boy, are you being marketed to! – it’s Wine Tchochke-city out there.

This stuff tends to look the same from year to year, with a few flashy innovations thrown in to confuse us. Jill helps us edit the non-potable options.

• JILL’S TWO CENTS

You may have heard of this class of wines and thought: what makes them more ‘Tuscan’? These wines come in heavy bottles, with heavy price tags – is it just in-crowd aspirational marketing? Are Super-Tuscans respected in Italia, or is it the stuff of comic books?

Remember: wine culture is essentially borderless, with grapes and techniques thriving where they didn’t necessarily originate. Veronica helps us suss out the origins of Super-Tuscan.

Goes great with: a room with a view, a meal of many courses, a playboy with a title to pick up the tab.

• WHAT’S VERONICA THINK

Just when we were feeling comfortable with the French, along comes cognac: deep in flavor and high in alcohol, produced by what appears to be a time machine, packaged in bottles whose gilded labels are covered in logos, codes and script. It is sipped by Masters of the Universe in their smoky lairs, on their way to world domination…right?

Well the stock market is way down, but cognac is still around. Marcel helps us address the great spirit.

• WHAT’S MARCEL THINK

“Reserve” sounds good on any bottle: better than the garden variety, we picture a Reserve bottle being pulled with reverence from a special vault in the cellar, a footman nodding at our good taste. But what does “Reserve” actually mean?

It largely depends on where the wine hails from. Chances are, though, that it will cost a premium over a non-Riserva bottle. Veronica shines a light into the wine cellar’s proverbial murky corners.

Goes great with: dinner with the boss, an inquiring mind – and some extra ducats.

• WHAT’S VERONICA SAY

Can one wine simultaneously represent tradition as well as youth? Can one wine be annually celebrated, as well as reviled? Can one wine embody unpretentious drinking, while coming from the most famous of wine regions? What fresh hell is this?

The Barney the Dinosaur of wines, happy, purple Beaujolais Nouveau is embraced by wine stores, who move the stuff, but not wine snobs, who disregard it. Is it a shameful pleasure? Jill will help you decide.

• JILL’S TWO CENTS

The Ten Bells feels like the cozy hold of a frigate: stool seating, a U-shaped bar, great lighting. It’s a transatlantic voyage, as the Bells features biodynamic wines of France, the winemakers noted along with each glass listed on the blackboard walls.

Will the voyage be rough? Will the organic wines illuminate? Will Jill leave hungry? Read on, true believers…

Goes great with: a petit appetite, high school French, an eye for romance

• JILL’S TWO CENTS

Infuse Me, Baby

No wine list is going to have an Aromatized Wine section, and yet they are stocked everywhere, as some of the best-known and most-recognized wines produced.

These wines were doing infusions eons before aromatherapy, and sourcing locally when ‘green’ only meant ‘rookie’. Often, they are seen not as stand-alone libations stateside, but crucial ingredients. Veronica sniffs out the history in the mystery.

• WHAT’S VERONICA SAY

You’re on your friend’s terrace, enjoying a German white – a soft sweetness that matches your mood, and a crispness that’s really clicking with the chicken sausage on your plate.

You turn the bottle around to look at the label and…whoah. A castle, a crest, and some really long words in Renaissance Faire gothic. Huzzah, indeed.

Marcel escorts us through the brambles in the German wine aisle.

• WHAT’S MARCEL THINK