Custom Taxonomy list: how to make “choose from most used” default to open, checklist

The default UI view for a hierarchical custom taxonomy is a series of checkboxes. It sounds like wine taxonomies have a one-to-many relationship so you should be set.

If you are registering your taxonomy using PHP add hierarchical => true to your configuration options.

register_taxonomy( 'xxx', 'post', array( ... **'hierarchical' => true** , ...) ); } ?>

If you are using a plugin there should be an option to set a taxonomy to hierarchical.