A new year, a new feature!

I will admit to the occasional impulse purchase when it comes to things alcohol-related. These impulses used to cost me a lot of money, but now I’m more inclined to keep them fiscally in check.

It also helps me to have a direction. So, here’s the new idea. Whenever the buying bug bites me, I’m going to hit the wine section of my neighborhood Schnuck’s (which is actually a really nice wine section) and purchase at least 3 wines for the princely total (not including tax for the anal retentive out there) of about $20. For those distracted by my (neverending, though you should be used to it by now) parentheticals, that’s three bottles out the door for a total bill (less tax) of $20. I’ll be grabbing whatever looks interesting to me – whether it seems a particularly good or bad value, has a cute label, a terrifying label, freakishly high or low alcohol, got a mysteriously high rating from some wine rag or another. Whatever. The only cavaets being: (1) price; (2) available at the grocery store; and (3) it must intrigue me somehow.

I just made a mid-afternoon run, and have three candidates (one was marked down from $13 to $8 – that’s almost 40% off! Needless to say, I couldn’t resist finding out why.) lined up. I’ll open them tonight, and follow them over the next couple of days. I expect most to be, well, workmanlike (i.e. a grape-based alcohol conveyance system), but I’m sure some will be horrific, and I just might find a gem or two.

If you’ve got a clever idea for the name of this feature, feel free to post it in the comments. I thought about it for 30 or 40 seconds and drew a blank. Immortality on the Internet awaits!

Also, I have lots of holiday wine notes that may, or may not make it up. Regardless, I drank pretty well, and got back into the habit of making some notes, so that was good. On the down side, I’m pretty much taking a health-related break from beer (but not wine or whisky) for the next few months, so the focus of the blog will skew a bit over that time. Sorry about that. Wine and whisky are good too, my gentle beer people. I promise.