Specs Wine Tasting

This Wednesday was the monthly Specs wine tasting so I set off with high hopes. One thing I noticed right away was that it was incredibly busy inside. Let me just take a moment to explain how the wine tasting is set up.

There are 10 barrels places around the store... in the aisles and in the corners usually... and there are 2 wines at each barrel. Usually the 2 wines are related in some way usually being from the same winery. There are a few employees at each barrel to punch your tasting sheet (so you cant come back and re-taste) and pour you some wine. Usually they are very chatty and love to tell you about the wines and get your opinions. HOWEVER, when the store is overcrowded, it messes up the flow of the whole tasting. I had to pretty much stand in a line at each barrel to get a taste, and the employees were very rushed and not as interested in talking. The crowds made it hard to move around the store, and a few times I was poured a taste of something with no explanation of what it was. To be honest thats my favorite part of the Specs tastings - learning about the wines.

So I was a bit disappointed but still, its free delicious wine so I cant complain. As I went around the barrels trying wine I realized something else weird though - I wasnt really loving any of it. I write a rating next to each wine I try, an X, a dash for meh, a check or a check plus. At the end of the night there were no check pluses, and only a few checks. Hmmm... usually I love about 5 or 6 wines and have trouble choosing which ones to buy at the end. This time I bought NO wine, which is a first. There just was nothing that wowed me, and everything was very average.

Which prompts me to wonder - how do they choose the wine for the tastings? Is there a theme among the 20 wines? Or are these the wines in the store that haven't been selling very well because they are less well known? (I usually cant recognize 90% of the wines at the tasting) Or are they wines that Specs gets paid to promote? I would like to find this out.

In the end, I just bought one cheese - which was one they weren't even sampling. Its just a plain soft goat cheese that I thought would be delicious on salads. Im trying to recreate that warm goat cheese salad I had on my birthday. So it turned out to be an interesting specs tasting as always, but not terribly productive.