Guilt = Great Wine

Last night, my husband I attended an awesome event and it was all for free - thanks to the glory of guilt!

Let me 'splain....no....it's too long....let me sum up......(Princess Bride)

Saturday evening, our orignal plan was to have one of my couple friends from work over for dinner. But another friend of mine, who's on the Mobile Loaves and Fishes board, gave them tickets to this fancy smancy wine tasting fundraiser. I cornered him in the hall and told him I was mad at him because I had TOLD him that they were supposed to be at my house Saturday and now he'd ruined my dinner plans! (It was all in good humor - I wasn't really mad but it was fun to give him a hard time about it.)

He immediately remembered that I had, indeed, told him that. Felt bad and insisted that we take some tickets to the event. I tried to refuse and told him I wasn't really upset but he insisted that he had like 5 or 6 more to give away and he didn't have them planned for anyone and was really hoping we'd come. Well - ok then! What was awesome is that we got tickets to the pre-event tasting of some wines which were (supposedly) very expensive and fancy.

So it was really fun. Of course, me being me, I spent the first hour of the evening taking notes as Miss Jane the sommelier taught us all about wine terms, etc. I also took notes about which ones tasted great and which were kind of ick. The funny thing is that the wine which was, apparently, the biggest deal - the rarest and supposedly the best - was really not that great. None of us at the table thought much of it. The final red of the evening was awesome and I liked the white a lot too - it was a completely different taste than I've ever had in a white. (It was a Viognier from a vineyard in California which escapes my memory at the moment....) I might have to do a posting sometime soon about the wines we tried and what I thought. Just for the heck of it. I'd love to find out how much the bottles would cost but I didn't have much luck with that during a quick internet search today.

The most unique wine, however, was one that I didn't even know existed! It was, by far, the most fun wine I've ever tried. It was an Australian Shiraz (my favorite kind of Australian wine) but it was bubbly! I kid you not - it was bubbly like champagne and served cold. All I can say is that it was a blast to drink - very tasty, very fun. I will definitely be tracking that bottle down. (Unless of course it's some obscenely expensive wine....)

Well, my husband is in LA tonight through Friday evening - so D, I hope you're having a good time! I'm a wee bit jealous that you and the guys will get to have fun, find the good bars, etc....but that's ok. You deserve it. (Of course, I do too...!!) Luckily, my mom was kind enough to come live with me and the kids for a week - she's a lifesaver. At least she can relax in the morning, but starting at 2:45 each afternoon, it's a madhouse of picking up the kids, feeding them snack, getting them to swim team then getting my eldest ready for kickball games (on Mon and Tues). Ugh! It was great to see her on Mother's Day and I'll do my best to not completely wear her out. Well - I want to begin my new book tonight and I'm about to fall asleep right now - so I guess I'll sign off.