Liz Vilardi knows wine. The owner-and-wine-director of both Belly and The Blue Room has a notoriously well-tuned palate and intuitive wisdom when it comes to by-the-glass and bottle offerings—while the Kendall Square sister restaurants have been closed since August due to damage from a neighboring fire, Vilardi has kept her skills limber running her Central Bottle shop and prepping for the re-openings (fingers crossed for mid-August!) Here, she shares some insight into her list-making process (including an assist from Ray Charles), current wine crushes and the wine imbibing trends she’d like to see in Boston.

How do you organize a wine list?

I like to organize a list by body, weight and texture. For both bottle lists at The Blue Room and Belly, white, rosé + red are the first distinctions, then their weight/body/texture and then organized by country and region inside of that. As for by-the-glass lists, which in my opinion are the most fun to gather, The Blue Room has a traditional take: white, rosé and red. We list the wines lightest to heaviest in their weight so when we describe them to guests they have some sort of measure to follow along. Or if we ask what they drink at home or want to have this evening, we can quickly make our way to the middle of the list or the end and so on. By-the-glass at Belly is its own beast entirely. It is 100% completely self-serving and then I hope everyone wants to play along. I’ve brainwashed the staff into believing my idea is good and we should get the masses to drink this way. Total narcissism.

What inspires you when putting together a list?

Often times music for wine by-the-glass at Belly and then from there it’s totally existential. Often times drinking from a region can inspire a wine by-the-glass list at TBR and that can be because of the food. Food-first at TBR and mood-first at Belly.

Are there any tunes you usually turn to or have found conducive to wine list-making?

I have written lists inspired by Cake, Queen, and now I have Ray Charles to thank for our re-opening Belly list. So, no real genre, but my taste in music is all over the map.

What are you drinking this season?

I drink mostly white wine, to be honest. I love rosé, but I’ve been loving rosé (and I would say many wine professionals have) for more than 10 years now, but it has only recently caught on to those not in the industry. White wine will stand the test of time for me. I like low alcohol, dry as hell, minerally white wine mostly as my everyday go-to. I’ve been revisiting Morgex, loving up some Cava pét-nat and checking out some French cidre. And I have revisited a favorite grape recently: Scheurebe. Man, it’s good. I like it trocken [dry] and I like it cold. I’m not too picky which one, but Muller Catoir never fails.

Any current wine crushes?

I love Matt Rorick very, very much (forlorn hope). I am excited my recent winery purchase of Massican has arrived— Dan Petroski loves Friuli as much as I do. Matthiasson kills it. I am really getting into American wines since I’ve easily spent the last 13 of my 16 years in wine pretending California didn’t exist.

What would you like to see become popular in Boston, wine-wise?

Good wine. Real wine. I’d like two-buck Chuck abolished from the shelves along with Kendall Jackson and the like. I’m asking for too much, I know.

What are some trends you predict for wine-drinking in Boston this year?

Rosé. Yes, rosé will come out of the gate strong again. It’s hard to discuss trends in wine for me because there is evidence of winemaking in Egypt that goes back to the 3rd millennium BC. I’d like to think we’re past the trend-setting part of wine. Really, I think Americans should learn to incorporate it into their lives more often and more responsibly— that’s what I’d like to be a trend in Boston this year. I’d say let’s start a trend to drink low alcohol wine and to learn to buy (i.e. reading the label) low alcohol wine— it’s a thing; we care about it as wine buyers and so should drinkers of wine, too.