"Here, I'll give you a taste."

     Despite the name, this isn't a cooking blog, which you will have noticed if you've tried to find many recipes on it. It's not even a food blog.  It is a tasting blog.  The know how involved in tasting or savoring life is something I lack.   The post title was something a moonshiner said to my husband decades ago in Roanoke, Virginia, and in the case of moonshine, a taste is all you should ever have.  Make. You. Go. Blind.

no, no, a nine dollar red that's good?  oh yeah

     This blog is me  learning to taste instead of chug (beer pong) through life.  My Saturday wine tastings have been an object lesson in this.
     You can't taste seven wines, and revisit the ones you like. Drink? Well, you can, but there is no happy ending, particularly the next morning.  Long before that, there's no joy in lushville. Saturday night? Fuhgetabout it. You want to start hydrating. You want to sleep. And you want to get started on both as soon as you walk more or less straight through the door of your home.
     Week three of this madness, I opted to stop seeing the afternoon the way a child sees toys-r-us and began seeing it the way a thin woman sees...well.. See's  I became selective.  Yes, I tasted all seven wines, but I made sure the servers who love me, didn't "help" me with such generous pours.  I also made sure my mouth didn't have left over flavors from the wine-before so I didn't have to drink two or three big gulps to get the flavor of the "new" wine.  Lastly,  I began to poured the rest of the wine I didn't like into the dump bucket. ( Yes, that's what it's called. )  I couldn't bring myself to spit.  It's just not done where I'm from, y'all.

Kids at wines-r-us. Sweet? yes. Selective.  uh..  no.

     Week five, I stopped tasting cheap reds entirely unless my fellow tasters/drinkers did the reeeallly happy dance  and asked to "revisit" it  or when someone whose palate I respect recommended I give it a try.   And for the record, a cheap red, in my mind, is anything less than twenty dollars.  Call me a snob, call me not a masochist.  They tend to give me a killer headache and my liver is worth more than "free" wine.   A white wine can get away with more slumming, probably because they're typically served so much colder, but by week six, I let my white warm up a bit.  I want to taste the wine, not feel the chill.
     Today is wine tasting day.  I'm going to stop at Target to buy a to-go coffee mug for discrete spitting.  I'm almost gagging as I type this, but I love tasting wine. Drinking wine, well, yes, that too, but in moderation, not in a marathon.    I'm using this article as my guide and defense, should it please the court. I know for a fact it pleases my head, my liver and the legal blood alcohol limit for the operation of a motor vehicle. I am however going to bring a few tissues, because I can almost promise, there will be some dribbling.   Ack...