The questions in this series aren’t really stupid. But the whole wine thing can be so (unnecessarily) intimidating. Good thing for you I have no shame.

Tysan Dutta graduated from Vassar College at age 19, so it’s only natural that she went to New York City and became a bartender—something had to make up for all that studiousness. While she worked the bars of Manhattan, however, her inner nerd emerged again: in the form of a passion for wine education and particularly pinot noirs.

Her pinot love brought her to Portland where she served as sommelier at the famous Heathman Hotel, among other places, then moved to Seattle for the chance to pair wines with the fabulous fare at the Herbfarm. Tysan left the restaurant last year and became general manager and Sommelier of Fonte on First Avenue. Somewhere in there she also managed to pick up a masters degree.

Here, a stupid question for the very intelligent Tysan Dutta.

I hear a lot of talk about tannins, but what the heck are those things? Do I want my wine to be tannic or not? Also, is it true you can be allergic to them?

When wine drinkers refer to tannins, they are usually referring to red wines. Tannins are caused by the skins, seeds, and occasionally the stems of wine grapes during the fermentation process of winemaking, and through the effects of barrel ageing.

Think of tannins as the brawn that go along with the brains of the acidity and the beauty and grace of the fruit. Much like the perfect soulmate, that perfect glass of wine should have quite a lot of all the qualities we like—but have them in balance with one another. In a soulmate, some of us prefer more brawn and less beauty, and others prefer more brains and less brawn. I always think of wine in terms of food, and because of that I tend to prefer a slightly higher amount of brains (acidity) to my brawn.

Tannins play out in the wine in positive ways by creating structure and a slightly drying effect on the palate. When they are over present, however, they can be overwhelming—if you’ve ever noticed the fuzzy feeling on your tongue after eating spinach or drinking oversteeped tea at a Chinese restaurant, you’ve felt the effects of too much tannin on the mouth!

The most common complaint in regards to tannins results from red wine infanticide—drinking wines immediately after purchase instead of allowing them to age. Because of the current marketplace of wine drinkers, many winemakers make their wines ready to be drunk upon release. But a lot of the top French, Italian, Washington and Californian wines benefit from at least a few years cellaring before consumption. A very general dummy-proof guideline is that the more a bottle of red costs, the more likely it is that it’s going to require ageing. The shop where you buy your wine or a quick search online can usually give you some general ideas of how long you should wait before popping the cork.

People sometimes think a wine allergy is due to sulfites or tannins, but a friend of mine who is a naturopathic doctor explained to me that the most common allergy people suffer from is actually an oak allergy—thus why red wines (often aged in oak) bother more people than white wines (often aged in stainless steel or neutral containers). Using this as a guideline, those who currently think they are allergic to red wines in general might expand their vinous repertoire by testing a few red wines that do not use oak in their winemaking process! Who knows?