Within a year of its launch, the circulation of the magazine, which offers a radical approach to wine assessment, has already reached 38,000. A glance through the latest issue reveals why it has raised the hackles of the more conservative members of the American wine community. For a start, it dares to put an Afro-Caribbean model on the cover. (Have you ever seen an Afro-Caribbean drinking wine in any wine publication before?) Then, inside, you can find features on the latest Wine Rave Tour of American cities, the rock star Sammy Hagar's cellar preference, and a double-page pictorial on the wine-maker Lou Foppiano snowboarding. There is even a feature called "The G-Spot", which pairs new fashion ideas with the latest trends in wine and wine-making.

"If you are young and want to learn about wine in this country, you have to sign up to the sort of lifestyle the traditional wine magazines encourage," says Roberts. "Wine is not a lifestyle, it is a complement to a lifestyle. "I realized that there was no one targeting our generation, and no one was attempting to describe wine in a way that young people can relate to. Wine is about moods and feelings not just fruits and vegetables, so why shouldn't music, film and sports references be used to describe a wine?"

Accused by some American wine critics of instigating the Beavis and Butt-head approach to wine writing, Roberts simply points to his growing readership as proof that his magazine's fun and irreverent wine appraisals have found a market. "A lot of people in the wine trade don't want wine to be demystified because that will knock them off the pedestal their language puts them on," he says. When asked how anyone could find "a silk stocking pulled over a super-model's stubbly leg" in a bottle of Portuguese red, Roberts explains his evaluation system like this:

"Our panel assess the wines and write down all the usual grocery-list stuff, then I take those notes and convert them into something our readers can relate to." So, referring to the stocking and stubble, it is just another way of saying that Ramos-Pinto's Vinho Tinto is sexy but a bit rough. A Chardonnay that other critics might describe as rich and tropical with a silky mouth feel, reminds the Wine X panel of "Jodie Foster eating buttered popcorn naked". But how will such winespeak go down on this side of the Atlantic? The British school of wine analysis is split into two camps. On the one hand, there is the "wheelbarrows of ugli fruit", Goolden style of winespeak, while on the other, we have the "lovely nose, delicate mid-palate" gobbledegook used by the old-school brigade. At the risk of making myself redundant, I would say that both leave many new wine drinkers cold. Many people who stick their nose in a glass of wine either cannot find (or perhaps cannot be bothered to find) the aromas, fruits, textures and tastes that wine writers talk about. Irrational though it may seem to most members of the wine trade, there are plenty of wine lovers for whom the taste of wine is, well, wine. Their assessment of quality is based on the effect of the wine on their senses, the images and feelings it triggers, and the memories it drags up. So, a mouthful of smooth, sexy Zinfandel does not conjure up images of spicy berries, it makes them think of Antonio Banderas dancing. Well, that is what they are hoping at Wine X. So far, Roberts has had no complaints from wineries about the way their wines have been described. But if his magazine ever reviews First Growth wines, it will be interesting to see the Rothschilds' reaction when their wine is likened to a close encounter with Claudia Schiffer's upper thigh.