perhaps a bottle of rose instead?

I went to a wine tasting on Friday night. I'm sure that conjures up an image of some terribly pretentious types pretending to know a lot about wine, but I assure you it wasn't as bad as all that. The event took place in the grand surroundings of a small village hall near my Mum and Dad's place in Buckinghamshire and was a fund raising event for the local Entertainment's Group of which my dad is a keen participant.

The format is this: the owner of the local wine shop (who used to be a buyer for some big importer and who clearly knows his stuff) comes along with a selection of wine for us all to taste, and in between tastings we get some sketches and songs from the Entertainment's Group, culminating in a bit of carol singing.

Actually, on second thoughts maybe it is as bad as it sounds. They did the Lumberjack song and the Philosopher's song, for heaven's sake!

Anyway, there was a blind tasting. We were given a wine and told to write down on a little slip the country of origin, the region, the grape variety and the vintage. It was a big, beefy red, so I guessed at a South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. It was also very, very tannin-y.... so young? 2004?

Bingo. It was apparently a very nice shiraz cabernet merlot, but the £15 bottle was mine all mine (much to the disgust of C, who actually has something of a palate for wine, unlike my rather blunt excuse for taste buds).

Not an entirely wasted evening then. Well as they say, an evening wasted is not a wasted evening.

Cheers!