Reader, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution on your behalf. But first, a confession: I’ve been guilty, this last year, of the least pardonable sin that a wine writer can commit. I have been a wine snob.

Even a single act of snobbism has a way of coming back to haunt you more than once. Last summer, for example, I wrote of having received an orange carton containing six bottles of a new California wine brand called Twin Fin. The front labels show an old red convertible. The back labels said Twin Fin was meant for “those who prefer sunny days over dark cellars.” But some of us love dark cellars because that’s where really serious wines spend years or even decades slowly developing, softening, and gaining complexity. On sunny days at the beach, surely the destination of that red convertible, you drink beer, soda pop, or, if it’s to be wine, a wellchilled rose. Or so decreed the nasty little whisper of the wine snob that was apparently not so deep down in me.

Twisting off the aluminum cap of Twin Fin merlot, I poured a sample and instantly hated it. Both grapey and sugary, it tasted to me more like an alcoholized soft drink than wine from a vineyard. The cabernet sauvignon wasn’t any better. I didn’t even bother with the other four sample wines: a shiraz, pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot grigio. It struck me that the French, especially those raised on sophisticated Bordeaux, would pour such unsophisticated wines directly down the drain. I did exactly that with the two wines I tried and gave the others away.

A few weeks later, a friend from Bordeaux arrived for a visit at my house. Each year at harvest time, she picks grapes at the illustrious Chateau Haut Brion and I always count on her for the lowdown on each new vintage. Her flight to New York had been on KLM. “Peter,” she said, “they served a really great wine in coach class. I brought you a bottle.” Out of her knapsack she pulled a single serving bottle of Twin Fin merlot.

Days passed before I gave Twin Fin a second chance by opening that little bottle of merlot. It still tasted too sweet and beveragey.Yet it wasn’t so bad as the first time around. Maybe, I reflected, a wine tastes better when you know it most likely has been picked by an expert who could just as well have chosen an inexpensive Bordeaux for KLM coach class. Somebody like my friend Joshua Wesson, for example, who was the first American to win a major European sommelier competition. Josh went on to co-found Best Cellars, a wine shop on the Upper East Side.

I tossed the little bottle of merlot in the recycling bin and closed the book on my brush with snobbism. Or so I thought. A few weeks ago, a press release from Jet Blue arrived, introducing its new wine program. It trumpeted the first selections by the industry’s first “Low-Fare Sommelier,” Joshua Wesson. The aim was to “bring fine wine to our customers, which have thoughtfully been paired with our complimentary brand-name snacks.” After extensive blind tastings, the man with the equivalent of perfect pitch on his tongue had picked a pair of wines to inaugurate Jet Blue’s wine service. One was a chardonnay, the other a pinot noir, and both were from Twin Fin.

Swallowing hard, I called Mr. Wesson and told him how I’d given the back of my hand to Twin Fin. I felt my shame lift slightly when he told me that he’d rejected two Twin Fin reds “on their face,” one of which he called “disgusting.”

His selection process for Jet Blue began, he explained, with the premise that “people in coach have low expectations.” He’d first checked out the wines offered by the legacy carriers to set a base upon which he could improve upon. “I wanted wines which had never been boarded in any coach class,” he said.

One hundred samples later, all tasted blind,Twin Fin chardonnay and pinot noir had triumphed. “It’s especially tricky to find an inexpensive pinot noir,” he said, “and doubly tricky to find one that actually tastes of pinot noir. This one gets most of its fruit from Monterey on the central coast, which I have always liked. Last time I looked, this pinot noir had a shot of malbec blended in, which gave a lift to the fruit yet didn’t get in the way of the wine’s varietal character. It’s a wine that’s not overly manipulated and doesn’t taste confected or dosed up in the lab.”

I hung up the phone and headed over to Best Cellars on Lexington Avenue where I bought a bottle of Twin Fin Merlot 2003 for $10.99. It smelled and tasted of ripe black cherries. The texture was velvety, even seductive, or as Josh put it in his tasting notes,”as smooth as a silk sarong.” I’ve paid more for Burgundian examples of pinot noir and got less satisfaction. Mr. Wesson suggests that, in flight, Twin Fin pinot noir will be “righteous with Rold Gold Pretzels.” Myself, I have already humbly eaten crow with this honorable wine, which I once deigned to give away rather than sample.

So here’s my New Year’s resolution: to be open to each and every wine on its merits alone, and never again to tarnish this column with snobbism.