There are three liquor
stores close to my house that host Friday night beer tastings (sometimes) and
Saturday afternoon wine tastings (always).
I have a route mapped out, as I have mentioned before in this blog, and
I time it so that I can hit all three tastings within about 75-90 minutes,
including travel time.
I think I am unique in my
strategy, but today that bubble bursts.
This week I can only find
two of the three usual tastings listed in my email “in” box, so I plan for just
the two stops today.
I arrive at destination #1
to find a six-bottle (perhaps it’s more) table set up with all kinds of
champagne, with the coup de gras at the end:
an $85 bottle of champagne (on sale at the store for $63). It truly is great champagne, but I don’t
think my palette will ever be able to discern an $8 from a $15 bottle from a
$20 bottle to a $63 bottle.
I buy the $8 champagne (which
is pretty darn tasty) and head to the next tasting.
The second place has a
four-bottle table set up. A couple has
just arrived, so we start the tasting together.
A few more people come by – a girl wearing a college sweatshirt, and a
couple that looks vaguely familiar, so I’ll call them That Guy (and wife). Here we
start with the more expensive and work down the cheaper ones. Nothing really
lights my fancy.
Afterward, I roam the
aisles comparing prices on the champagnes from one store to the other. This is where I run into That Guy and his wife again.
ME: Are you looking for an inexpensive bottle of
champagne?
THAT GUY: Yeah, nothing too ridiculous.
ME: (pointing to a bottle that was about $16 at
the other store and $18 here) This stuff
is pretty good, and it’s got a decent price on it. I was just at another tasting and I had it.
THAT GUY: Were you at the wine store in the old village?
ME: Yes … were you?
At this point, three of us
are laughing, me and That Guy and his
wife. We chat for a few moments about
how we are each doing The Unofficial Saturday Circuit. I already bought myself a bottle of champagne
at the last place, so I head to the back for a six pack of Budweiser in bottles
that I can drag out of the massive cooler.
As I’m finishing up my
sale, I call out, “See you next Saturday!”
That Guy laughs. “Sorry,” he says, sounding genuinely
apologetic, “but we’ll be away next weekend.”
“Then, the Saturday after
that,” I reply.
The conversation ends and
all is right with the world again. I
grab my beer, add it to the other brown bag on the floor behind my seat in the
car, and start counting away until next Saturday.
