I got into drinking wine at all because I happened to live in the southern German white wine region (marvelously underrated -- I believe southern Germany produces some of the world's best white wines). I lived across the street from a ritzy department store (Galeria, in Mannheim) that hosted a local vintner every Saturday. You could walk in and try a shot glass of each of their range for free. After about a year of doing such, and perhaps 50-ish moderately priced (maybe €7, on average) bottles purchased, voila!, you were moderately competent about white wine.

Or so I thought. It turns out that even going to weekly tastings you don't stumble into the funky stuff. You'd never stumble into dessert wines or wines made with wild yeast. You'd rarely stumble across their barrel-aged whites. They knew what sold, and they'd highlight that.

I still order a case (12 bottles) or so a year from my favorite winery in southern Germany, where I met the vintner in said department store. I've even stumbled across one of their bottles from the sommelier in my favorite restaurant in Berlin. But it's truly only from high end restaurants (and their drink pairings) that I've discovered how wide the palette for wine goes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I've been to Noma, mentioned in the lead to the original article, and their wine selection, like with most top end restaurants, is genuinely palette-stretching.