It is, to say the least, rather nervewracking to order a simple glass of red or white when Lettie Teague, the wine editor of Food & Wine magazine, is sitting directly across from you.

So, when in such a position, I did what any self-respecting ignoramus would do – I pretended to know what I was talking about. “I’m in the mood for something light,” I said confidently, somehow believing that the word “light,” would qualify as wine lingo and impress Ms. Teague. Unmoved, she began rattling off recommendations. Talking in her characteristically speedy manner and continually interrupting herself, Ms. Teague raced through the wine list.

“Well, you could do a fairly fullbodied, rich white – or a light juicy red…how about a rose? I love rose!” Lettie Teague loves rose? Well then, I love rose, too. “I love rose too,” I said. It’s settled, and the scariest part of our lunch is over.

Ordering anxieties aside, Ms. Teague is decidedly approachable. The stereotypical wine snob is just that – a snob. Ms. Teague, with her dry, self-deprecating sense of humor and down-to-earth approach to wine shattered my preconceived notions of a typical connoisseur.

“Life is too short to be serious,” Ms. Teague laughed. “There is so much self-imposed seriousness in the wine world, this sort of exaltation of the beverage. Wine is meant to be consumed in a joyful setting with friends.”

That is not to say, however, that Ms. Teague doesn’t take her work seriously. After becoming the wine editor at Food & Wine in 1997, Ms. Teague beefed up the magazine’s wine coverage. Their October 2004 wine issue, which Ms. Teague “put to bed” last Friday, is the biggest in the magazine’s history.

Ms. Teague’s early years were almost entirely viticulture-free. The daughter of a glassware designer, Ms. Teague was born in Indiana, but moved throughout her childhood to various places in Ohio and North Carolina. She attended junior high school in Indiana, “where everyone was a member of the future farmers of America or the future homemakers of America. I belonged to neither group.” Ms. Teague claims that she read almost every book in the Winchester Public Library. “Everyone thought that because I could conjugate verbs, I would be the next president of the United States.”

After graduating from Winchester Community High School in Indiana, Ms. Teague headed to Kenyon College, where she studied English. It wasn’t until she spent her junior year abroad in Ireland, studying Irish literature and history, that wine entered her life. She was living with a wine distributor who owned a wine bar along with his wife and children as part of a homestay program.

“It was just so glamorous,” she said. “The father would bring home wine every night and we’d sit around and talk about it and I thought, we’re talking about wine the way one would talk about books, you know, with these metaphorical flights of fancy, and I just thought this could be endlessly interesting in the same way that literature was.”

Upon her return to America, Ms. Teague began subscribing to Wine Spectator, and decided she wanted a career in the business. Wine veterans repeatedly encouraged her to start out in retail. So after graduating from college, Ms. Teague followed their advice and found her first job, at a wine store in Scarsdale, N.Y. Her parents were less than thrilled. “When everyone else was in law school and publishing, they were not too pleased.”

But the experience proved invaluable. After a few years hopping around from various wine distributing jobs to restaurant managing positions, she settled into a lucrative career as a public relations executive, specializing in wine. At the same time, Ms. Teague, who was known for doodling on sales slips at the various wine shops where she worked, lent her cartooning ability to her friend Leslie Brenner’s 1995 book “Fear of Wine.”

“My friends always call me ‘Lettie of 1,000 jobs,'” Ms. Teague jokes. But in all seriousness, working those “1,000” jobs has meant that she has gained, as she puts it, a “thorough look at the wine business from all angles – restaurants, wholesale sales, retail sales, marketing, and PR – which has proven a great boon to really understanding the way the wine business works.”

By August 1995, magazine writing was what Ms. Teague craved. And unfazed by the legions of naysayers who warned that jumping from “the chasm that exists between PR and journalism is impossible,” she landed a job as the food, wine, and books editor at Diversion, Hearst’s travel magazine aimed at physicians. After a year at Diversion, in 1997, Ms. Teague applied for and landed the job as the wine editor at Food & Wine, where she remains. In 2003, Ms. Teague won the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation, for a column she wrote on the “Secret Life of a Sommelier.”

Lest you think Ms.Teague’s life has fallen into a dull pattern of wine tastings here and interviews with vineyard owners there, she stresses how varied and exciting her career is. “The wine world is always changing – it makes my heart pound. It can keep you awake at night!”

One the most exciting new developments is the public’s newfound enthusiasm for New World wines. From New Zealand to Latin America to the Finger Lakes region of New York, Ms. Teague is thrilled to see what high quality wine is emerging outside Italy or the Loire Valley.

She is also excited about how affordable good wine has become. Indeed, one of Ms. Teague’s pet peeves is expensive wine. “Expensive wine lists make me apoplectic,” she said. Which is why, she said, “It’s so wonderful to see what excellent wine is being sold at very fair prices.” And as a result, “wine has made its way into the American lexicon at long last.”

When she’s not thinking about wine or food – which is not often, since her husband, Alan Richman, is editor at large at Bon Appetit, a contributing editor at Conde Nast Traveler, a writer at large at GQ, and the dean of food journalism at the French Culinary Institute – Ms. Teague enjoys running (two miles every day), riding horses, listening to Cuban music, and relaxing in her suburban fantasy of a home in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

At the end of the day, it’s still the wine that matters. And hearing Ms. Teague describe that “perfect glass of wine” is, to put it simply, inspiring.

“It just stops time. Everything that went into making the wine – the producer, the place, the process, all of that runs through my head. You get a snapshot of a person’s artistic capabilities. It’s really just a moment of pure happiness.”